Ontario Hepatitis Treatment

Most people do not experience any symptoms when they first become infected, and symptoms may not appear until 10 or 20 years later when the disease has progressed. Most people who have developed chronic hepatitis C will not have symptoms until their liver disease becomes serious.
Upon becoming infected, some people may feel ill for short periods, and in rare cases may become jaundiced (yellowing of the skin and eyes).

Chronic hepatitis C and symptoms

• Patients with hepatitis C often have a number of non-specific symptoms.
• These include fatigue, sleepiness, itch, right-sided abdominal pain, nausea, insomnia, inability to concentrate.
• The severity of symptoms does not correlate with severity of liver disease, nor with viral load or genotype.
• The majority of patients with hepatitis C have no symptoms at all. This suggests that the symptoms that some patients complain of are not related to hepatitis C, but to other causes.
• Depression appears to be common in patients with hepatitis C. In part this may be a feature of an ex-injection drug-using population. Despite this patients often claim disability on the basis of symptoms that they attribute to chronic hepatitis C.
• Factors influencing progression of disease

The following conditions are associated with more rapid progression of disease.

• Age at acquisition of disease (older age associated with more rapid progression)
• Concomitant liver disease
  • Co-infection with hepatitis B
  • Alcoholic liver disease
  • Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
• Co-infection with HIV