Living Without HepC

Today I did the 12th injection. I thought of the man whose blog I recently read who frequently seemed to have trouble with the injections - he had to ’stab himself’ (his words..) with the needle a second time as it didn’t pierce his skin on the first occasion. This seemed a regular occurrence for him during his treatment - and his nightmare. I have not had any similar problems. Yesterday I noted for the first time that the point of the needle is further shaped to provide a sharper piercing tip. And it doesn’t hurt when I inject myself. If I inject the interferon slowly I can’t feel it as it gathers under the skin. When I leave the tip under my skin for 5 seconds (as instructed) this helps the interferon move away form the injection site - and yesterday I noted no discharge of meds or blood from the site when I withdrew the needle after the injection.

Unlike the instructions I saw on the Pegasys site, and read in the information which comes with the medication, I do not wipe over the injection site with an alcohol pad, before and after - this was not part of the instructions I received from Mynurse at the clinic. Because I do carefully scrub my hands before the injection, and ensure that the meds are opened only on a clean piece of kitchen towel, use a ’sharps box’ to safely dispose of the needle and so forth, it would seem to follow that I would clean the injection site. However, I notice when I have blood taken for tests that none of the phlebotomists wipe the site before or after drawing blood. This has been similar practice in several different hospitals. So I guess there is sufficient medical evidence that this ‘procedure’ is not necessary. I will check with Mynurse sometime, out of curiosity!

As with other weeks, I continue to not have any particular reaction to the injection directly afterwards.

My only reaction this week was to realise that I have now completed ¼ of the series of injections -12 down and 36 to go!! Now that I have completed one quarter of my treatment program I am going to review my progress overall, from start date to now, and I hope to publish a general commentary on this next week!

I saw my GP this afternoon – for the first time in over a year I think. He asked how it was going – I wasn’t sure if he meant the Bell’s Palsy (I knew he had recently received a letter about this) or the treatment. He said “you went to see this friend of yours….”. I know that Giles, in the report of our consultation sent to my Consultant Hepatologist and to my GP, had acknowledged under Patient History, that we had been neighbours years ago and family friends since then. I wondered if there was some innuendo attached to the GP’s way of referring to the consultation but I don’t know what it might be. Puzzling. (I know, I could have asked !! but it didn’t seem important enough at the time to stop the flow of the discussion, nor have I ever felt my relationship with this GP such that he would welcome or entertain such enquiries.)

I went to see him because I noticed a new spot on on my chest, similar to two other ones I have on my skin elsewhere. They are the sort of skin condition people refer to as ‘liver’ spots – as indeed the GP did in years gone by when I conferred with him about them. They seem to have some cycle of activity – they go red and then over time a crusty white residue appears on the surface and this becomes itchy. Then there are long periods of time when nothing happens and they are quiet. Last week Carol discovered something very similar on her shoulder and I became alarmed that my spots are contagious. I am very sensitive to being contagious – hence my trip to the GP. He reassured me they are not contagious although he seemed no more certain about what they are than previously. He decided to write me a letter of referral to a dermatology department at a nearby hospital. The reassurance they aren’t contagious was sufficient but I think he is being conscientious with the referral to a specialist.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2005 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.