I am a 57-year-old white American male infected with Hepatitis C. I am involved in a controlled medical research study by Roche Pharmaceuticals of an experimental Polymerase Inhibitor (RO5024048 also known as RG7128) drug therapy for the virus. This document is the story of my illness and the experience of treatment. My lovely and pretty damn wonderful wife will be contributing her take on the experience as well.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Hep C By the Book: Three Titles

After learning of HepRat (HR)'s diagnosis, I rushed to the local Borders to find some books. The three I got over the next six months or so turned out to provide good coverage of the Hep C situation from a variety of perspectives.

The first one I found, Living With Hepatitis C For Dummies (Wiley, 2005), is a great overview written by Nina Paul, PhD. It is a good introduction to the whole confusing mass of information circulating out there about Hep C. The author briefly explains everything -- tests, diagnoses, how people get it, types of treatment (including Western, complementary, and alternative medicine), and what Hep C patients can do to manage their condition.

The most important idea I got from this book was to keep a Hep C notebook -- a record of test results, everything related to the disease, and what you, the patient, are experiencing. It is a complicated condition and your memory may not be so good down the line as the disease progresses, or as you take powerful medications with many side effects.

Next, I discovered The Hepatitis C Help Book, Revised Edition: A Groundbreaking Treatment Program Combining Western and Eastern Medicine for Maximum Wellness and Healing (St. Martin's Griffin, 2007) by Misha Ruth Cohen , OMD, L.Ac and Robert Gish, MD, with Kalia Doner. This book bridges alternative medicine and Western medicine disciplines and introduced me to a bunch of Hep C resources right in my own backyard -- support groups, the Quan Yin Healing Arts Center, meditations for healthy livers, and the like.

Cohen is a doctor of Oriental medicine and a licensed acupuncturist, while Gish is a hepatologist and medical director of the Liver Disease Management and Transplant Program at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco (SF). Some heavy hitters here -- this book made me realize how fortunate HR and I are to live in one of the preeminent areas of the world for HepC research.

The penultimate volume I found is Living With Hepatitis C: A Survivor's Guide (Hatherleigh Press, 2006). The new fifth edition just came out (2009) and I immediately bought it, too. Written by Gregory Everson, MD, this book definitely details the Western medicine approach, but it is essential for anyone considering participation in clinical trials. The author summarizes all the clinical trials research and has up-to-date information about the latest experimental treatments. There are lots of graphs and diagrams -- you'll need them to keep up. For the patient who wants to be an informed participant in his or her own treatment decisions, this is the book for you.

I didn't go to the Internet until after I had reviewed these books. I didn't want to be overwhelmed by information. Generally, I love the Internet and search it right away for opinions, data, etc., but I guess I had to ease into this fact-finding mission with some good books because the stakes were (and are) so high.

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