Randolph Health Internal Medicine is excited to now offer Hepatitis C treatment.
Hepatitis C is a viral infection that causes liver inflammation, sometimes leading to serious liver damage. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) spreads through contaminated blood.
About half of people with HCV don't know they're infected, mainly because they have no symptoms, which can take decades to appear. For that reason, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all adults ages 18 to 79 years be screened for hepatitis C, even those without symptoms or known liver disease. The largest group at risk includes everyone born between 1945 and 1965 — a population five times more likely to be infected than those born in other years.
Long-term infection with the hepatitis C virus is known as chronic hepatitis C. Chronic hepatitis C is usually a "silent" infection for many years, until the virus damages the liver enough to cause the signs and symptoms of liver disease.
Signs and symptoms include:
Bleeding easily
Bruising easily
Fatigue
Poor appetite
Yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes (jaundice)
Dark-colored urine
Itchy skin
Fluid buildup in your abdomen (ascites)
Swelling in your legs
Weight loss
Confusion, drowsiness and slurred speech (hepatic encephalopathy)
Spiderlike blood vessels on your skin (spider angiomas)
To schedule a consult with Jennifer Foreman, AGNP-C, at Randolph Health Internal Medicine, please call the office at 336-625-3248. She will do the full workup of laboratory testing and scoring for cirrhosis status. Patients with no cirrhosis or compensated cirrhosis will be offered treatment in our office. If they are found to have decompensated cirrhosis, they will be referred out for treatment. Treatment takes 8-12 weeks, depending on the drug prescribed.