Hepatitis C affects people very differently – many people with it may have no symptoms at all and may never know they have the virus. There is often little or no relation between the seriousness of the symptoms and the damage to the liver.
Symptoms are often hard to pin down and are frequently blamed on other problems. They can include:
- mild to serious tiredness (fatigue)
- anxiety
- weight loss
- loss of appetite
- inability to tolerate alcohol
- discomfort in the liver area (place your right hand over your lower right ribs and it will just about cover the area of your liver)
- problems concentrating (‘brain fog’)
- feeling sick
- flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, night sweats and headaches
- yellow skin or eyes, called jaundice (this is very rare and is a sign of advanced disease or acute infection).
Some of the symptoms may come and go. It is not unusual for people with hepatitis C to be
diagnosed as having ME or chronic fatigue syndrome. Unfortunately, the liver does not start to complain until it is seriously damaged – often only then do people realise that there is anything wrong.
Apart from hepatitis C, hepatitis A and B are the biggest problems for people in the UK. Hepatitis A often affects people travelling abroad. Hepatitis B also affects travellers but is more commonly passed on at birth, during sex or by injecting drug use.
Different types of hepatitis C
To make matters more confusing there are different types (genotypes) of hepatitis C each with different subtypes. Knowing what type of hepatitis C virus you have is important as the types respond differently to treatment, with genotype 1 needing the longest course of treatment.
The most common types in the UK, Europe and USA are 1, 2 and 3. Subtypes are labelled a, b and c.
It is possible to be infected again with a different type of hepatitis C, or be infected with two types at the same time.
Because each type responds to treatment differently you will be given a test to find out which type you have.