Dear Mr. Wright:
My husband just stopped his 4th time on Pegintron. He is experiencing the following symptoms:
| depression (he is normally a laid back calm gentleman) |
| fits of rage |
| crying jags |
| visual disturbances |
| insomnia |
| shingles with facial pain and brain electro surges |
| cloudy thinking |
| loss of balance |
| suicidal ideation (but not to the point of visualization) |
| skin maladies |
We have completely lost faith in the conventional medical community. His bloodwork has been very good, but the last liver biopsy showed a dramatic change in 2 years time; from stage 2 to areas of stage 4 biliary cirrhosis. This caused his gastro doc to be alarmed and they put him on a "maintenance dose" of interferon. The dose was 50 micrograms per week.
Then they proceeded to put him on Neurantin for nerve pain, oxycodoneir for facial pain, paxil for anxiety, a sleeping remedy...none of which worked.
I spoke to the manufacturer (Shearing-Plough) who gave me their patient care department, with personnel who knew NOTHING. The primary care physician knows NOTHING about the drug. The gastro doc knows NOTHING about the drug.
We know that interferon is poison -- a black box drug known to cause serious side effects. We don't know what to do, every road is a dead end. We are sick of alarmist doctors, sick of everything.
I put in an urgent plea to his liver doctor who said,
"oh, it's unusual to have these side effects on such a low dose." Can you help? My husband probably has had HCV for 30 years. He was an intravenous heroin abuser who through the help of God has been clean for 10 years. HE is a 47 year old caucasian male.
Please advise, guide, offer help, anything... Sincerely,
Debbe P.
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