That’s why Everyday Health teamed up with Jennifer Ashton, MD, chief medical correspondent for ABC News, and Douglas Dieterich, MD, director of the Institute of Liver Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and member of the American Liver Foundation’s National Medical Advisory Committee, to discuss the issues facing this population during a Facebook Live on October 30. In fact, Dr. Dieterich himself has had — and been cured of — hepatitis C. “In May of 1977 I was a third year [medical] student at NYU Bellevue, and I stuck myself with a needle from a guy who was really sick. We knew he had bad liver disease — there was no name for hepatitis C back then,” says Dieterich. At the time, he explains, it was newly referred to as “non-A, non-B hepatitis.” It wasn’t until 1989 that they officially started to call it hepatitis C. At the time of his diagnosis, Dieterich was studying to be an ophthalmologist, but his experience inspired him to switch his specialty so he could treat others who have liver disease.
Dr. Jennifer Ashton Reveals Her Own Hep C Scare
“I have a personal hepatitis C story, which I will never forget,” admits Dr. Ashton. After delivering a patient’s baby, Ashton, a board-certified Ob-Gyn, stuck herself with a needle while suturing up the mother’s laceration. The patient consented to be re-screened for hepatitis C and HIV, and the hep C screen came back positive. “I was terrified. And all I could think of was my life flash before my eyes,” says Ashton. “I thought, ‘I can’t believe that I did this to myself, I’m going to die from this.’” Ashton met with an infectious disease specialist who told her to “calm down” and eased her initial fears. Additional tests found that Ashton’s patient had a very low viral load; she had been exposed to the virus at one point, likely during her time in the military, but had since cleared the virus. According to the CDC, approximately 15 to 25 percent of people who are infected with the hepatitis C virus clear the infection without treatment. “I was ‘safe,’ so to speak,” says Ashton. But emphasizes that today there are life-saving treatments available for people who are diagnosed with hepatitis C.
Everybody Should Be Screened for Hepatitis C
According to the CDC, if you were born between 1945 and 1965, you should automatically get tested, as baby boomers account for 75 percent of the total number of Americans who have chronic hepatitis C. However, in 2017 the CDC also reported that new hepatitis C infections had nearly tripled over the previous five years, with the highest new infections affecting those ages 20 to 29. This is largely tied to the opioid epidemic. Additional factors increase your risk of becoming infected with hepatitis C, such as:
If you’ve used injectable or intravenous drugsIf you’ve had a blood transfusion or organ transplant prior to 1992If you’ve had hemophilia and received clotting factor before 1987If you’ve been on kidney dialysisIf you’ve had occupational exposure to blood or infected needlesIf you’ve had tattoos or body piercings in an unregulated settingIf you’ve worked in a prison or been incarceratedIf your mother had hepatitis C when you were bornIf you have HIVIf you’ve had sexual relations with multiple partners, or have a history of STDsIf you’re a man who has had sex with another man
“Frankly, I don’t think it matters — I think everybody should be tested for [hepatitis] A, B, and C, and then vaccinated for A and B if you’re not immune, and treated for C if you have it,” says Dieterich.
You Have to Ask for a Hep C Test
Getting screened for hepatitis C requires a simple blood test — but it’s not included in routine blood work. Routine testing of your liver enzymes isn’t enough, says Dieterich. “The vast majority of people with chronic hepatitis C have normal liver enzymes, so that wouldn’t be a clue at all. You have to specifically ask for hepatitis C testing.” And you shouldn’t let the fear of judgment related to certain lifestyle-related risk factors get in the way of talking to your doctor about getting tested. “It’s a no-judgment zone,” says Ashton. “This is a virus that does not discriminate. Like many things in medicine and health, anyone can get it — it’s not a social judgment or commentary, but it can be treated, in some cases it can be prevented, and it does not have to be a death sentence.” Dieterich agrees: “If somebody comes in to see me with hepatitis C and they go, ‘I don’t know how I got this, doc,’ I don’t go through the list, I don’t care — if you’ve got it, you’ve got it. We’ll fix it.”
Hep C Can Be Cured in More Than 99 Percent of People
Once you’ve been screened, if you test positive for the hepatitis C virus, most people can get treated without even seeing a specialist. More and more physicians are getting trained on how to treat hepatitis C, so that more and more people can be treated by their primary care physician, explains Dieterich. And hepatitis C is more than 99 percent curable with a short course of oral medication. “Even for the 1 percent that didn’t get cured the first time, we have plan B — we have another drug — which kills about 99 percent of that. So we’re talking 99 percent of 99 percent,” Dieterich explains. That’s why getting tested is so important — because if you have it, chances are you can be cured, and you can avoid the potential health complications of untreated hepatitis C.
