***Modern Hepatitis Treatment, A Vicious Cycle

More people today will choose natural, herbal and alternative therapies to treat Hepatitis C. Many sufferers want to avoid the horrible side effects of interferon and liver transplants that may not show a complete cure by eliminating the virus. In these later stages the solution is usually a liver transplant.

According to Web MD, Hepatitis C is the number one cause of liver transplants and kills about 10,000 people a year. Even if the transplant is successful, the virus in their body will infect the new liver while they are simultaneously receiving the interferon treatment. Eventually, time and the virus will ravage the new liver.It is a vicious cycle, especially when you look at the cost.

The following shows that the cost of a liver transplant is well over a half a million dollars. Transplant Living shows a breakdown; hospitalization is around $248,000, procurement is over $59,000, the physicians over $66,000, follow-up and evaluation is over $100,000 and with the immune-suppressants and other related charges the cost totals over $520,000. Unfortunately most Americans cannot afford this mainly because they do they have insurance to pay for it. And even if they could pay for it, more than half would go bankrupt when they go on the treatment; a vicious cycle; death or life with bankruptcy.

Why get a liver transplant? According to http://thehepatitisblog.com/?p=827 Early detection is key when it comes to most diseases but especially Hepatitis A, B or C. Hepatitis is able to linger with no diagnosis or treatment may eventually lead to liver transplants or even death.

On June 2, 2009, Yahoo published an article from Reuters that highlights this tragic fact about transplants and costs. In that article “Medical bills underlie 60% of U.S. bankruptcies: study”, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were caused by medical bills that are past due. Another astonishing fact is “most of these medical debtors were well-educated and owned homes and had middle-class occupations”. One of the researchers in the study said it does not offer the average American much hope for coverage. I begin to wonder if the average American can get over Hepatitis C using the conventional treatment; get well and not go bankrupt. The chances are very slim. Again it’s a vicious cycle for the Hepatitis C sufferer in the late stages of the disease.

What these late stages or what are the symptoms of the disease? According to http://thehepatitisblog.com/?p=391 Symptoms typically occur 5-12 weeks after being exposed to the virus and may last for weeks to months and include: liver pain (on the right side just under the rib cage area), nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, dark colored urine, gray or clay colored stools, irritability, confusion, and headaches (due to dehydration from chronic diarrhea.) Chronic hepatitis often leads to cirrhosis of the liver. Cirrhosis is where healthy liver tissue is taken over by scar tissue. When this happens, the liver loses its ability to detoxify the blood.

Additional symptoms at this time include fluid retention (especially below the rib cage in the belly area), jaundice (also called icterus which is a yellowing of the skin seen most obviously in the whites of the eyes), chronic fatigue, sleep disturbance, itchy skin, weight loss (wasting disease), vomiting now with blood in it (so it could look like coffee grounds) and finally hepatic encephalopathy characterized by hallucinations.

When the liver is sick we see diseases like high cholesterol, high triglycerides, hemorrhoids, cancer, allergies, varicose veins and lots of anger and resentments.

So let us look at the ideal situation where the Hepatitis C sufferer already has the symptoms and has insurance and finances. What are their options? The doctors will put them on interferon treatment. Those costs are well over $60,000 even with the minimal treatment; but does this really work? Interferon may not be effective for a long term remission of the disease.

The American Liver Foundation has shown that “the initial course of treatment is 6 months and in most cases the patients relapse and require retreatment”. What this means is six more months of feeling like you have the flu every day and another $60,000. Many of the studies say that higher doses of interferon are not necessarily effective for eradicating the virus. To make matters worse many patients under the treatment experience “breakthrough”. This occurs in patients who normalized their serum ALT levels in the first few weeks of treatment, but show raised levels occurring shortly thereafter, which means they are essentially having a relapse during the treatment itself.

Is interferon a valid agent of proven efficacy? Is transplantation of the liver really an effective course of action if the chances are nearly certain that the new liver will later get the hepatitis virus from body? The patient is just going to get sick again, it is just a matter of time. Moreover, if you are one of the lucky 3% who are well in the first 4 years after treatment are you able to work? The doctors say you will always have the virus so you could relapse again within a short period of time. More to the point, could it be that the medical solution to hepatitis by ignoring natural therapies is a sure road to bankruptcy for over 60% of Americans, that it will only bring continued treatment and relapse of the Hepatitis C virus?

There are holistic, herbal and alternative therapies that many people have used to recover naturally from Cancer, AIDs and Hepatitis C. Doctors say the risks are too great and there is not enough research to support these therapies. It seems in reality that the risks are too great with their conventional treatment; at best there is little chance of real recovery or survival. Alternative and natural therapy is a choice and chance that many Americans are willing to take wanting to avoid the conventional vicious cycle of Hepatitis treatment.