thanbey

First of all, welcome to this board.
Always good to have a new face around the place.

You ask about treatment and autoimmune. Interferon treatment is contraindicated (as in: do not prescribe for this patient)for those with the autoimmune disease you have mentioned. The balance of probability is against a good result without activating (prematurely) the diseases you have listed. Your doctor has done his homework there.

This is of particular significance to you who is newly infected. You have to be careful about your self-care (no smoking, abstain from all alcohol and make sure you stay as thin and active as you possibly can)

Treatments, other than interferon, are still in the experimental stage although the marketing efforts have clearly begun.

There is no reason for you to try to access an experimental drug since you have no liver disease and no symptoms. I recommend waiting until we have a real cure that is both safe and effective. So far, we don't have that.

In my opinion, person newly diagnosed should not take any unecessary risks with treatment, approved or unapproved.

Hepatitis C moves slowly, when it progresses at all. Most people newly infected can wait and weigh future options, if necessary, while maintaining optimal health. This is not so with other disease, like some of those you have listed.

Someone once said that a lie can travel around the world before the truth has its socks on. That is true with a lot of the information (read: marketing) that you hear about the treatments on the internet.

Again, the autoimmune issues make treatmnt risky. In any case, recommendations for treatment make this decision somewhat premature for you anyway. I hope you and your doctor will investigate the autoimmune issues more thoroughly. Potentially, this can be much more serious than hepatitis C.

I hope this helps,

thanbey



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