Sharing Your Hep C Story Makes a Difference

Everyone certainly has the right to share what they feel comfortable with, but sharing your story can help save someone’s life.

Sharing stories helps people get diagnosed

Sharing our hepatitis C story can have a powerful effect in people’s lives. Hepatitis C is known as the “silent killer”. Typically, patients don’t experience any symptoms until later as liver damage increases. The majority of people do not realize that routine blood tests done by their primary physician may not include testing for the hepatitis c virus. You must ask to be tested in most cases. Early diagnosis can save lives. First and foremost, the person needs to be aware they have hepatitis C in order to take care of themselves and take necessary precautions.

Sharing stories helps patients get healthy

For someone who has hepatitis C, drinking alcohol (for example) is very harmful and can accelerate liver damage. If you have been diagnosed with hep C, it’s necessary to have follow-up testing to determine your genotype (virus strain), and viral load, and level of liver damage.

Next, it's important to pursue which treatment is best suited for each patient. Some people may have heard about older treatments for hepatitis C, and believe that new treatments are the same. In truth, treatments has greatly improved. There are more treatment options available today for hepatitis C than ever before, all with shorter treatment time, fewer side effects, and very high cure rates of 95% and up.

Testing leads to treatment and treatment leads to being cured!

Sharing stories raises awareness

Many people do not understand what hepatitis C is or what it does to the liver. Most people (over 75) can't get rid of the hep C virus without treatment. The majority of patients develop chronic hepatitis C and don’t even know it.

If you have hepatitis C and gone through treatment, you understand what a shock it is to be diagnosed and learn about the disease. The majority of people today may not understand the facts about hepatitis C and treatment. They may be either be misinformed or hold onto myths about how hepatitis c is transmitted and how it affects their body. They need to learn the real facts.

You have an opportunity to share your story and encourage someone to be tested (regardless of their risk factors). Sharing your story can help save someone’s life.