A little bit more about me

Hello again,

I am getting used to this i think. Blogging that is. I have absolutey no idea if many or any people will read this. Maybe it doesn't matter really at the end of the day. As long as i am getting this down at all is the main thing, then at least it is 'out there'.
Well, right now in my life i am halfway through a journey, albeit a short one, of 48 weeks of Interferon & Ribavirin treatment. My next injection, my 28th, is tomorrow at 23:30pm as it has been every Thursday since February.
Lets go back a bit. but don't worry, i will bring you right up to date in due course.
I have had Hep 'C' since i was a small child. Sometime during the 70's i was injected with some bad blood during treatment for my Haemophilia.
I didn't know i had Hep C until the mid 90's when i was told by my doctors. For some reason i was more concerned about having Hep C than having HIV. Obviously when i was first told i had HIV i thought it was the end of the world and wouldn't even see the next Christmas! But gradually i have learnt to live with HIV and more recently Hep C. But For a long time, whilst i could almost forget about the HIV i could not do the same for the Hep C! I was managing my HIV very well for the most part and still am but always in the back of my mind was what my liver was doing, how big it was getting and when will it turn nasty!!
And all this time i was doing absolutely nothing at all to treat it. I was probably making it worse with all the meds i take for my HIV. But i just kept it there in the back of my mind and tried to ignore it but it would always come back. I had been told about Interferon at my hospital and maybe i should think about starting it in the future. But again i just swept it away. But early this year was told by the same doctors that i should really consider starting treatment and now is the time to start!
So i did!
I had read nothing on Hep C and treatments available. I was given information in the past all about it but just chucked it away without even looking at the front cover! But now i had to start treatment i was looking up all that information again on the internet and reading up on possible side effects etc. I was still worried about starting but had nothing to loose. Infact it was probably the best time to start since i had been going to the gym nearly every day for nearly 1 year keeping fit and mountain biking too in between. So i started my treatment of Pegylated Interferon Alpha-2A 180 micrograms in a syringe once per week and Ribavirin 200mg x3 twice per day and a tiny little Folic acid tablet once per day.
My fist injection was done up at my Haemophilia center in London, i did it myself in front of the nurse just so they could see that i could do it. It happened to be the easiest injection i have ever had. I felt nothing! It just slid right into my side in the fold of flesh i had squeezed together. Infact every injection since that first one has been the same. I do keep changing from side to side every week incase of bruising since i have severe Haemophilia too.
As soon as i took the fisrt dose i was waiting for something to happen, but obviously it was far too soon to expect any side effects. Bearing in mind i started 6 months ago i will try to remember what kind of a time i have had during treatment. But for now i will finish because it is getting late and i have been mountain biking all afternoon, but i will be back tomorrow to continue.

Jason



(C) JPT 2006