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.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Since We Were Talking About Side Effects…

The past four or five days have seen another shift in the nature of the side effects associated with treatment. Generally, I have noticed that the side effects I am experiencing are consistent for an extended period of time. The cycle of flu-like symptoms, fatigue and nausea has consistently started about 14-18 hours after the interferon injection and lasts about 36 hours. The fatigue also continues to moderate through the week after the interferon injection and my best days are usually Wednesday and Thursday, just before my next injection. The headaches and dyspepsia (which they define as an overly full feeling and general stomach discomfort) are intermittent but they happen for a few days each weekly cycle. This experience of side effects has been the same for about 10 weeks. This week saw changes in some of the effects and the resurfacing of one that had disappeared 10 weeks ago.

The last 5 days I have been mildly nauseous for most of my waking hours. This has also been accompanied by a bloated feeling in my stomach. I also had a return of dysgeusia (a change in the taste of food) as well. The nausea didn’t seem like much of an issue to me, although it did keep me from doing some of the things I was planning. I wasn’t running to the bathroom to vomit, I only had to lie down a couple of times and mostly I could ignore it or wait it out. Then I woke up this morning without it and realized how good it felt to just feel normal. There is nothing like suddenly not feeling a side effect to make you realize just how crappy it had been making you feel. I may have been tired all day today but damn, I felt good!

I have also had yet another change in the taste of food. The last one came about the time I started taking antidepressants and resulted in ice cream suddenly tasting good again. This time I have become extremely sensitive to things that taste sweet. I tried to eat a piece of chocolate on Thursday (yes, I shouldn’t be eating chocolate, see here, but I am weak) and it was so sweet I couldn’t finish it. Ice cream has once again become something I just can’t face eating as well as things like fruit preserves. I realized how extreme it had become just this evening. I had bought some sweet corn (25 cents an ear) and after boiling it up to have with sausage and potato salad, I could barely finish eating it as it seemed to be sickeningly sweet. Sweet corn, along with tomatoes, one of the iconic tastes of summer, what is Hep C treatment turning my body into?

I am now injecting 3 drugs per week, interferon, Procrit and Neupogen, so that might have something to do with the change in side effects. It might just be long-term sensitization to the drugs. It could be the changes in white and red blood levels or the interaction of the 7 daily and weekly drugs I am now taking, who knows. It seems my body is reaching a new rapprochement with the drugs I am taking and that it might mean a new cycle of side effects to get used to. It could be worse, the next time it might be grilled sausage that starts to taste like cardboard, anything but that…

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