What is Hepatitis C? How do you get it, and when is it important to get tested?

The CDC describes Hepatitis C as “a serious liver disease that results from infection with the Hepatitis C virus. Hepatitis C has been called a silent epidemic because most people with Hepatitis C do not know they are infected.”

Why is it that baby boomers, in particular, should get tested? The CDC says that Hepatitis C is not completely understood – and that a lot of people likely contracted Hepatitis C in the 1970s and ’80s when rates of the disease were at their highest. Most people living with Hepatitis C don’t know it, and the longer people go undiagnosed and untreated, “the more likely they are to develop serious, life-threatening liver disease.” To learn more:

Visit the CDC’s website to learn more about Hepatitis C
Read this fact sheet to learn about what it’s like to live with Hepatitis C
Check out Hepatitis Education Project to learn more about Hepatitis resources and information, especially if you are a patient, a family member, a friend, a health care/service provider, or just someone who wants to know more about hepatitis in the Seattle area.

The Hepatitis C Support Project (HCSP) is an organization that provides unbiased information, support, and advocacy to all communities affected by Hepatitis C and HIV/HepC coinfection, including medical providers. HCSP hosts the HCV Advocate, a news and pipeline blog that shares information about support groups and shares the personal stories of people experiencing Hepatitis C like Twila.

Twila’s Story

I was first diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 1993. I was 21 years old and had just graduated from college. Throughout college I had the same general practitioner and she had done routine blood work on me. Those results always came back with something “unusual,” but we wrote them off because I was young, healthy, felt fine, etc. After I graduated she decided I should see a specialist.

I went to see a gastroenterologist who took me off the birth control pill I was on to see if my liver enzymes would change. After more testing the enzymes were still high. The doctor did another round of blood work and finally determined that I had Hepatitis C. I was devastated. I thought for sure I had HIV too and that I was going to die. I had never used intravenous drugs or had a blood transfusion or anything – at least that’s what I thought. That night I called my mom in tears and told her what I had learned. She was completely silent and crying and then told me that I had had to have blood transfusions after I was born. I was born 2 ½ months premature because she fell on ice. I had 3 or 4 blood transfusions in 1971 when there was no testing of blood. We determined that was where I had to have gotten it. [To continue reading Twila's story, click here.]