What to know about Hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C is one of the hardest diseases to diagnose. It severely affects the liver and can cause an extreme amount of damage. However, there are hardly any symptoms at the initial stage, which causes most people to remain oblivious to its presence.
There are multiple variations of this disease, but all of them pose nearly the same danger. The only difference between them is how they respond to different treatments and medications. This is not a contagious disease, and it spreads from one person to another, only through blood and other bodily fluids.
Effects of Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C is hard to diagnose because of the sparse symptoms. Moreover, it affects different people in different ways. A few stages of the infection vary from person to person, depending on their immune system and physiology. The different stages of hepatitis C are:
- The incubation period is the window between the infection and the start of the disease. This again is different for different people. It can be as less as 14 days and as high as 80 days. According to a survey, the average period of incubation is 45 days.
- After the incubation period, there is a 6-month illness known as acute hepatitis C. This is a short-term illness, and most people who suffer from it do not need to worry about anything as the body will get rid of the virus on its own.
- Those who do not get the acute infection are infected with chronic hepatitis C. This is the case in almost 85% of people. In this scenario, the illness transforms into something that lasts for much longer than six months and can lead to some serious health complications in the future.
- One of the most adverse effects of chronic hepatitis C is liver cirrhosis. It takes almost 20 to 30 years for complete liver failure, but the process can happen faster if the patient consumes alcohol or has HIV.
- Another major impact of liver cirrhosis is liver cancer, which is fatal for anyone. It is hard to diagnose, and you will need to get regular tests to identify it.
Medications for Hepatitis C
There are several drugs and medications to keep the complications of Hepatitis C at bay. One of the more popular ones is Hepcinat Plus, which is used for chronic hepatitis C infections. Its main function is to remove the hepatitis virus from the body and the bloodstream over some time.