Question about treatment for an inmate
so I have a friend who is currently in prison and was finally accepted for the hep C cure Mavyret. The thing is they never told him anything prior and just randomly shoved meds at him. He asked the basic questions he had remembered me always saying to ask, which when he asked how long he would be taking the treatment they told him 4wks, when he read the med guide he noticed that it says 8wks, something I had confirmed as another friend of mine who was in prison (now released) was treated also with Mavyret was on it for 8wks. Then he asked about blood tests and they told him they won't be doing any blood tests until months later after finishing treatment, something we also found confusing as I thought you're supposed to get at minimum a mid treatment blood draw to see how well the medication is working. Basically what my question is, is any of this sound right? My friends had hep c for almost 2 decades, they never even told him his exact type of hep c other than type 1 but I asked if it was 1a or 1b and he had honestly no idea. Will only 4wks of treatment cure him? and is it normal in any way to not do any blood work until months after finishing treatment? I'm just very confused and he's very concerned so I told him I would reach out to the hep c community and try to find some answers or advice for him on the circumstances of this. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Hi Tash. What a great friend you are. You are correct about the dosing. Some patients do 8 weeks and some do 12 weeks. On a rare
, in someone with extensive liver damage, they do 24 weeks. Whether he will be lucky and get cured with only 4 weeks, I do not know. I hope he can make a big stink about it and be able to get ,the appropriate dose. While standard of care is to do lab work, as long as he if feeling well, all he really needs to know is if he is viral load undetected 12 weeks after treatment ends. I wish your friend the best.thank you so much for your response!! I'm apparently the go-to person to call if someone who knows me in prison starts getting the cure & will ask questions which most of the time everything goes just fine for them & I'm happy they were able to join the "cured survivor" club lol but in this case I've never been so concerned & confused for a friend getting the cure in prison, when I answered the first question he asked was is it normal to only get the cure Mavyret for 4wks & I said not that I've ever been aware of, just 8wks at soonest & in his case they should be doing 12wks cause he's had it for so long but then again they never gave him any paperwork besides the standard med guide for Mavyret but no lab work was done he has no idea if he has 1a or 1b or what his viral load is or anything honestly. then when he asked about blood work during the treatment or when he's finished & they said they don't do any blood work until 3-4mon after he finishes the 4wks, yah he called me immediately & I told him pretty much everything you had said but I told him I would come to the hep c community & ask you guys as well just to make sure I was right to be concerned. I will send him an email today letting him know he needs to start figuring out what is going on cause the fact he doesn't even know his subtype alone blew my mind, I thought all that was mandatory before just putting someone on medication & he had no warning, just one day (Tuesday) out of nowhere they called him to the medical wing & had pills shoved at him & he had to even ask what medication is he even being given. It doesn't help he's in prison though because only he can honestly really help himself right now as there's not much anyone can do on the outside. Sorry I feel like I just wrote a book! lol I've just been really worried about it as this is one of my actual really close friends & I know he's been trying hard to get cured for a few years now but I don't understand how what they're doing is going to help him or why they'd just decide to do 4wks when even the med guide says the soonest is 8wks. Thank you again though! =]
Tash, don’t worry about the genotype. Mavyret works on all genotypes.
I tried to copy dosage info for you but the tables would not copy and I couldn’t fix it. If you know how to screen shot, I don’t, go to mavyret.com and take a screenshot of the dosing protocol. Perhaps if you mail it to him, he can show the prison doctor. Or, if you prefer, call the HCV in prison.org and ask for Michael Ninburg or Mandy and tell them what is going on. They often can help. Phone number is 206-732-0311. If your friend is almost out of meds, do it fast. If you happen to reach Michael, tell him I sent you. Good luck.
