Irritated From Shropshire
Just come from Nicks blog. Nice one Nick, and well done on getting BBC to change policy on their photos used to advertise hepc – no mean feat.
The issue keeps arising, where do some people who have no background of intravenous drug use get hepc?
When I went for my first appointment to see my hepc specialist nurse I was completely unprepared for the bombshell about to be dropped. I assumed hepc was a mild complaint which could probably be cured by antibiotics! Blissful ignorance. We all know the stunning effect of the truth.
I didn`t talk about it with my wife for three days so as to get my head around it. It was she in fact who brought the subject up. Sarah is Italian and had been on the phone to her mother in Italy. Sarah mentioned to her mother in passing that I had been diagnosed hepc+ and had just been to the specialist. This 80 year old woman ( a foreigner mark you) knew exactly what that meant.
“Oh, that`s serious” she said and proceeded to elaborate.
So imagine my shock when Sarah challenged me to tell her everything that had been said at the hospital. As it happened Sarah was booked to go to Italy a few weeks later and learned more about hepc in ten minutes than she had in hours over here. Sarahs sister is a health professional and her cousin a doctor ( both in Italy)
It is a well documented fact in that country that hepc was spread mainly due to poor dental hygiene techniques prior to the AIDS outbreak in 1982. When you consider all the facts involved the conclusion is inescapeable.
It only takes a microscopic amount of blood to spread the virus. No matter how insignificant the treatment at the dentist there is almost always some blood. Before AIDS when dentists got smart in order to protect themselves, they never wore gloves or masks. Not that gloves or masks are significant in protecting the dentist or the patient from any blood borne virus – it`s just a sign of a mental shift.
Far fetched? O.K. imagine you do not have hepc. You do not want hepc. Would you sit in the same dentists chair that someone who you knew for certain had hepc had just sat in?
I rest my case.
I am beginning to recommend all my friends (all around the 50 mark) to be tested for hepc. None of them have ever used drugs of any sort – most are going to go for the test. Watch this space for results!!
Government guidelines admit to dental hygeine being a risk factor for contracting the virus, but only in foreign countries. Is Europe foreign? I thought we were Europeans.
By the way, more misinformation by the government. My daughter works in sexual health educating teens in safe sex. An almost impossible job!! She has just learned that her department is to get extra funding to heighten awareness for hepc as a sexually transmitted disease!!!
How is it then that I have just read a report ten years in the making that there was no link found whatsoever that hepc could be transfered sexually between monogamous couples. www.hepc-connection.org go to newsletters 12/10/04
This report will come as a great relief to those of us who have partners who maybe wonder in the back of their minds..............?
Incidentally, as you will discover, hepc connection is a great site and their arhive of newsletters the most impressive I have seen.
Well, there it is. Take it or leave it.
When all is said and done it doesn`t matter a damn anyway. We have the virus by whatever cause and we need to get rid of it.
Signed,
Irritated, from Shropshire.
The issue keeps arising, where do some people who have no background of intravenous drug use get hepc?
When I went for my first appointment to see my hepc specialist nurse I was completely unprepared for the bombshell about to be dropped. I assumed hepc was a mild complaint which could probably be cured by antibiotics! Blissful ignorance. We all know the stunning effect of the truth.
I didn`t talk about it with my wife for three days so as to get my head around it. It was she in fact who brought the subject up. Sarah is Italian and had been on the phone to her mother in Italy. Sarah mentioned to her mother in passing that I had been diagnosed hepc+ and had just been to the specialist. This 80 year old woman ( a foreigner mark you) knew exactly what that meant.
“Oh, that`s serious” she said and proceeded to elaborate.
So imagine my shock when Sarah challenged me to tell her everything that had been said at the hospital. As it happened Sarah was booked to go to Italy a few weeks later and learned more about hepc in ten minutes than she had in hours over here. Sarahs sister is a health professional and her cousin a doctor ( both in Italy)
It is a well documented fact in that country that hepc was spread mainly due to poor dental hygiene techniques prior to the AIDS outbreak in 1982. When you consider all the facts involved the conclusion is inescapeable.
It only takes a microscopic amount of blood to spread the virus. No matter how insignificant the treatment at the dentist there is almost always some blood. Before AIDS when dentists got smart in order to protect themselves, they never wore gloves or masks. Not that gloves or masks are significant in protecting the dentist or the patient from any blood borne virus – it`s just a sign of a mental shift.
Far fetched? O.K. imagine you do not have hepc. You do not want hepc. Would you sit in the same dentists chair that someone who you knew for certain had hepc had just sat in?
I rest my case.
I am beginning to recommend all my friends (all around the 50 mark) to be tested for hepc. None of them have ever used drugs of any sort – most are going to go for the test. Watch this space for results!!
Government guidelines admit to dental hygeine being a risk factor for contracting the virus, but only in foreign countries. Is Europe foreign? I thought we were Europeans.
By the way, more misinformation by the government. My daughter works in sexual health educating teens in safe sex. An almost impossible job!! She has just learned that her department is to get extra funding to heighten awareness for hepc as a sexually transmitted disease!!!
How is it then that I have just read a report ten years in the making that there was no link found whatsoever that hepc could be transfered sexually between monogamous couples. www.hepc-connection.org go to newsletters 12/10/04
This report will come as a great relief to those of us who have partners who maybe wonder in the back of their minds..............?
Incidentally, as you will discover, hepc connection is a great site and their arhive of newsletters the most impressive I have seen.
Well, there it is. Take it or leave it.
When all is said and done it doesn`t matter a damn anyway. We have the virus by whatever cause and we need to get rid of it.
Signed,
Irritated, from Shropshire.
posted by Paul | 1:09 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Paul,
I and many others have long suspected that there may be another undiscovered route to HCV. Logically one must exist, otherwise how come the virus existed prior to hypodermic needles? My bet is that it exists in some other form with a non-human host.
Martin
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