My brain is on overload here. Having a real bad day today and thinking the worst blah blah blah......2 days till hubby's treatment starts. Grateful but scared and just a bad day all around. Enough about that! Hubby is geno type 1b and I notice that Lost1 you are 1a what are the differences if you can tell me. We have been told he has a 50% chance of beating the virus due to genotype. His last alt was at 147 and has dropped since then and then has risen again, this has been the pattern so Doc. said time for treatment. Hubby is getting real nervous now as friday is the day. Thansk to anyone who replies, glad to come here and type away to you all. be back soon,
Faith

Faith-
Yup love that name, HCV is a tricky virus with many mutated strains [genotypes], that is why it is going to be hard to treat.

An example of genotypes 1A -1B -1C then 2A-2B-2c then 3A-3B-3C then 4A- etc you get the picture,
having said that, Genotype 1A is the hardest to treat,where as, 4A being the easyist to treat.

Genotype 1A is the prominant Genotype in north America, [ USA and Canada ] -genotypes 2/A/B/C is prominant in Italy, and genotypes 3A/B/C is the most prominant in Asia.

It is possible to have one or more genotypes regardless of where you live, Now, myself being a 1A, I will harder to treat, harder to respond to treatments, your hubby Faith, being a 1B will have a better chance of responding to treatment than I, and some one being a 3A, will have a much better chance than us, and will only have to treat for 24 weeks.

With the pegasys studies here in Canada, all where geno type 1A or 1B, these studies have been ongoing for near five years, with all involved the sucess rate is a encouraging 61 % for respounding and being virus free, some have been 100% virus free for over three years.


Just a reminder, even if you are "cured" of HCV,if you are in a high risk group, you can be reinfected, so these treatments are not a true vaccine as yet, but still our best chance, I beleive for the next five years, to improve our quaility of life by ridding ourselves of this Dragon bug.

That first shot will be nowhere as bad as the both of you are thinking, just go into this with a high positive attitude, get outdoors with fresh air, keep reasonably busy,and take control of the treatment, do not let it control you, your support for your hubby will have a huge impact also, A certain guy,"lucky" will probebly respond just because of the outstanding support from his thoughtful wife.

Be positive, be well+

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--Get Outdoors-Enjoy Life----Neil

WOW! That is awesome information and so easily understood. Thanks for explaining things to me and I will be printing this out for my husband to read. I understand that your treatment has been working well for you , your viral load has lowered am I correct? I didn't realize how genotypes were different around the world so to speak, interesting. Well lets cross our fingers ...Have you received your 12 weeks results yet?? Tomorrow is our big day, I will keep you all posted. After having this virus for 20+ years do you think it becomes more stubborn to kill as opposed to say having it for a couple of years. Hubby got this back in the late 70's he feels. Started out as what he thought back then a case of Hep B, got really sick and dropped a ton of weight,went yellow and so on. 5 years ago I made him go in and get a physical and low and behold his numbers were low and Doc got him to do more blood...Boom.....went back and was told Hep C +. I get tested every year and Iam negative. We have been together for over 10 years now. Once again Iam truly grateful to come in here and type away and read everyones posts. bye for now be back on saturday to post how things went.
Faith