Well....today is a dreary old day. It is raining and dark and cold. I guess our little bit of summer weather is over for now.
I thought I would write in and just talk about how I am doing and feeling during my treatment. As you may know, I am just ending my 6th week of triple therapy, Incivek, Peg and Riba. The first week or so was pretty good....wouldn't even know I was doing treatment. Ever since about the 2nd week of treatment I have been experiencing a lot of side effects. Pretty much every single day I experience nausea. It just feels like my stomach is upset and there are times when I really feel like I might vomit. I have not done that yet, but it is just the feeling. I also get a slight headache with it and feel like I should be lying down. I guess this is what they call the "flu like symptoms". From what I understand it is mostly from the injected Interferon. This is pretty powerful stuff and most people get this sickness for about 2 days after the injection. I do my injection on Thursday evening and usually Friday and Saturday are rough days. By Sunday and Sunday afternoon, I am not feeling so bad. I find that during the week, when I get this sick feeling, if I eat something, it tends to get better. I'm not sure why that is, but when I feel really sick, I'll go out and get a little snack, just something to make me feel a little full....that will make the sickness go away for a little while.
Yesterday I had a serious bout of diarrhea...sorry! I hate to be graphic, but it was pretty bad. I started to get pains in my stomach area and it was very bad. I wasn't sure what it was and was getting a little worried. The pains were getting real bad and I finally realized I had to go to the bathroom. Well......I was there for a while. It took pretty much the rest of the day to get over this. I made sure I was drinking lots of water....so important. By the evening I was feeling okay and it had stopped. Today I do not have it and I'm hoping it was something that might not come back for a while.
I continue to be able to have pretty good nights. I don't find that I am having trouble sleepiing. I know a lot of people doing this treatment find they have insomnia. This may come later for me, but for now I am able to have a pretty good night's sleep.
I have been told that these drugs build up in your body. This is the reason why most people don't experience too many bad things in the early days of treatment. It seems that as time goes on and we continue to take the meds, we experience more and more sfx. I am always wondering what I will experience today. So far I have not had anything that I would consider to be really terrible. I hate, hate, hate taking the Incivek....the reason being that I have to eat so much fat with each dose. It is a challenge to come up with something three times a day that contains a minimum of 20 grams of fat. That is just the minimum the drug company suggests. You should really eat more than that....at least 25 to 30 grams. I have been doing "shots" of olive oil. I measure out 2 Tablespoons into a shot glass and down it!!! I'm thankful that olive oil doesn't have much of a taste and it is easy going down. The only problem I have with this is I am getting sick of doing it. I need a change from time to time. I have been eating the premium ice cream with lots of fat and sometimes a very large cookie from Starbucks that contains about 26 grams of fat. I must remember to never, ever eat these once my treatment is over!!!!!
Well, that is about it for me. I continue to take my meds and do everything I'm supposed to do. As you may recall, my 4 week lab report showed that I am now Undetected for Hep C. That means that I do not have any Hep C virus in my blood. It is also called RVR. I am very lucky to have achieved this and I am so thankful. My next appointment will be my 8 week check up and I will have my Viral Load tested then. I expect it will continue to show Undetected. At this rate, I should be able to complete my treatment in 24 weeks and obtain SVR. That will make this whole nightmare worth it.
I will say bye for now and hope that everyone is well. I haven't heard from anybody for a while and assume that all are busy but staying well......
I will write my next blog when I go for my next appointment and get my newest results. Unless something comes up before then, I will see everyone at that time.
Love to all....
Believer
xoxoxoxoxox
