Too bad you had to stop treatment, you sound like you had an excellent viral response. There are LOTS of new drugs coming down the line, hope ya' find one soon.
On your biopsy, the stage is the amount of fibrosis, or actual scarring. Yours didn't get worse. Good. But the grade is the inflammation. Inflammation indicates attack. It can be predictive of future damage. As your liver is attacked, inflammatory cells propagate. This can go up and down depending on lots of factors. I guess your healthy living is paying off. There are other things that appear to help, like vitamin D. If you look around the forum areas, you'll find tons of info here.
Best of everything to you,
Brad
shadow10cats said
Nov 7, 2011
I had my 2nd liver biopsy since being diagnosed in 2004. The first biopsy showed Grage 2, Stage 1. I had stopped any drinking about a yr prior, and was living a pretty healthy lifestyle (vegetarian, non-smoker, athletic, etc). In 2008 I tried the 2-prong treatment for a week. Had a really bad reaction to the Lexapro they had me take but it could of also been the Interferon in any case I had to stop treatment. My viral load went from around 4 million to 500 thousand (but went back up pretty quick). I continued to lead a healthy life. I have been taking Milk thistle and numerous other supplements to help my liver deal with this disease. I tried the new Telaprevir treatment recently lasted a whopping 2.5 weeks and had to stop due to really bad side effects and loss of weight. However my viral load did drop to 100 and it was up around 6 million before I tried that stuff! Anyway, I just got another biopsy done and my results are now Grade 1 / Stage 1 - Improved!! and almost 8 yrs later. I am so excited. I asked my Dr if they just maybe got a "good" part of my liver but they said no, that it should be indicitive of the entire liver. Is this true? Can it be that my liver is actually healthier now after all these years of carrying around this virus? He said I can wait for another 5 yrs easy for a better treatment with less toxic side effects. But I just didn't want to read too much into this. It's great news tho and I'm could sure use it right about now.
Hi Shadow10cats.
Too bad you had to stop treatment, you sound like you had an excellent viral response. There are LOTS of new drugs coming down the line, hope ya' find one soon.
On your biopsy, the stage is the amount of fibrosis, or actual scarring. Yours didn't get worse. Good. But the grade is the inflammation. Inflammation indicates attack. It can be predictive of future damage. As your liver is attacked, inflammatory cells propagate. This can go up and down depending on lots of factors. I guess your healthy living is paying off. There are other things that appear to help, like vitamin D. If you look around the forum areas, you'll find tons of info here.
Best of everything to you,
Brad
I had my 2nd liver biopsy since being diagnosed in 2004. The first biopsy showed Grage 2, Stage 1. I had stopped any drinking about a yr prior, and was living a pretty healthy lifestyle (vegetarian, non-smoker, athletic, etc). In 2008 I tried the 2-prong treatment for a week. Had a really bad reaction to the Lexapro they had me take but it could of also been the Interferon in any case I had to stop treatment. My viral load went from around 4 million to 500 thousand (but went back up pretty quick). I continued to lead a healthy life. I have been taking Milk thistle and numerous other supplements to help my liver deal with this disease. I tried the new Telaprevir treatment recently lasted a whopping 2.5 weeks and had to stop due to really bad side effects and loss of weight. However my viral load did drop to 100 and it was up around 6 million before I tried that stuff! Anyway, I just got another biopsy done and my results are now Grade 1 / Stage 1 - Improved!! and almost 8 yrs later. I am so excited. I asked my Dr if they just maybe got a "good" part of my liver but they said no, that it should be indicitive of the entire liver. Is this true? Can it be that my liver is actually healthier now after all these years of carrying around this virus? He said I can wait for another 5 yrs easy for a better treatment with less toxic side effects. But I just didn't want to read too much into this. It's great news tho and I'm could sure use it right about now.