Hepatitis C Treatment in Florida
Free HEP C Testing, Treatment & Prevention Services
Hepatitis C Care
The Need for Hepatitis C Testing in Florida
New cases of hepatitis C have been going up since 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As a matter of fact, the most common risk that an intravenous drug user has is contracting this disease. The population particularly vulnerable to this medical condition is the 18-to-40-year-old age group. This statistic is alarming and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
What Is Hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C is a serious viral infection that can lead to liver damage. The disease causes inflammation or swelling in the liver, but it’s a condition that people do not necessarily know that they have. However, there are several symptoms that may indicate the disease.
What Are the Symptoms of Hepatitis C?
In the beginning, people with hepatitis C are in the acute phase, and this phase does not always release any symptoms. The few that some people complain of include the following:
- Muscle aches
- Fever
- Fatigue
- Jaundice
A person with a longer-term case of hepatitis C has chronic hepatitis, and this more advanced condition still may not produce any symptoms. This can last for several years, so the importance of hepatitis C testing is very important for everyone. Unfortunately, the symptoms begin to appear after the disease damages the liver so much that the following symptoms become noticeable:
- Spider angiomas or spiderlike blood vessels on the skin
- Hepatic encephalopathy or slurred speech, drowsiness and confusion
- Weight loss
- Swelling in the lower limbs
- Ascites or fluid buildup in the abdominal area
- Itchy skin
- Dark-colored urine
- Jaundice
- Loss of appetite
- Fatigue
- Bruising easily
- Bleeding easily
The hepatitis C virus doesn’t have to advance to chronic hepatitis C. If you or a loved one are in the acute phase, the body can rid itself of the virus, and antiviral therapy is a treatment that can make this happen.
What Are the Causes of Hepatitis C?
People contract hepatitis C by sharing needles with a person infected with the disease. The needle may have blood that is tainted with the virus, but this isn’t the only way that you can contract hepatitis C from drug use.
When people prepare their drugs before they ingest them, they use several pieces of equipment, including alcohol swabs, ties, cotton and cookers. You can contract the disease from any of these pieces of equipment. You can also get it by touching infected blood or coming in contact with contaminated surfaces.
What Are the Long-Term Consequences of Hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C can cause cirrhosis (scarring of the liver). Scarring keeps your liver from working as efficiently as it had in the past, so it has to work harder to do its job. Cirrhosis is not the end; it may lead to liver failure. Lastly, hepatitis C can lead to liver cancer, but this is rare.
Who Should Have Hepatitis C Testing in Florida?
According to the CDC, you need testing for hepatitis C if you are 18 or older. This means everyone, but some present a higher risk for the condition. This includes pregnant women and anyone who has ever inhaled, snorted or injected an illegal substance.
How Do They Screen for Hepatitis C in Florida?
Your physician will test you for hepatitis C by taking a blood sample. He or she will send the sample to a laboratory and screen your blood for the virus. If you have a positive hepatitis C test, you will need additional screening tests. A blood test can also be done to determine how much scar tissue you currently have.
Your doctor may also want to determine whether your liver has sustained damage. Liver damage tests include a biopsy. Your physician does this by using an ultrasound to remove tissue from your liver and sending the sample to the laboratory for testing.
The Tests for Liver Damage
When someone is diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C, doctors can perform the following tests to determine the extent of the damage.
Transient Elastography
This test can show whether there is scarring of the liver. This means that the liver is “stiff.” The technician performs this test by sending vibrations into the liver with an ultrasound. The machine takes measurements of how fast the vibrations can move through the liver.
Magnetic Resonance Elastography
This is a noninvasive liver test that a physician may choose to do instead of the liver biopsy described above. During this test, the machine creates a map that shows where the liver is stiff.
What Happens if Your Hepatitis C Test Is Positive?
A reactive HVC antibody test is a positive result. If you test positive, you will need another test to determine if you currently have the hepatitis C virus. This is the nucleic acid test (NAT). After this test, you will know whether the hepatitis virus is in your blood. If it is, the next step is to receive treatment.
What Is the Treatment for Hepatitis C?
Antiviral Medications
Antiviral medications treat the condition of hepatitis C, and they help the body remove the virus. After you complete treatment with an antiviral medication, your physician will want to see that your blood shows no trace of the virus after 12 weeks have passed.
For this purpose, you may receive direct-acting antiviral medications. The medical community has improved upon antiviral medications and created direct-acting medications that shorten the treatment duration and cause fewer side effects. In this instance, you may only need eight weeks to clear the virus from your body. Whether you can have this treatment will depend on several factors, including the amount of damage to the liver and if you have other medical conditions.
A Liver Transplant
If it turns out that you have chronic hepatitis C, you may require a liver transplant if your liver is seriously damaged. This is an operation in which your surgeon removes your liver and puts a healthy liver in its place. However, if you have a liver transplant, you will not necessarily be free of hepatitis C because the infection can return.
If it returns, you will need to continue taking antiviral medications to prevent the disease from destroying your new liver, but many advancements have been made. For example, newer antiviral medications remove the infection from the body entirely after a liver transplant. These medications may also be able to rid the body of the infection before you undergo a liver transplant.
What Are Syringe Services Programs or SSPs?
These are services that the community enacts to prevent the spread of diseases like hepatitis C. The program is positive because it removes dirty needles from the streets and prevents members of the public and first responders from accidental infection. Research shows that these programs have reduced the spread of diseases over the past 30 years.
Although these programs are preventing new cases of hepatitis C infection, the best option is to receive hepatitis C testing in Florida and refrain from substance use.
How Do You Prevent Hepatitis C?
You cannot be protected against hepatitis C with a vaccine because it doesn’t exist. So, the best way to prevent infection with hepatitis C is to stop using intravenous substances. In the meantime, the alternative to quitting substance use is to do your best to prevent contracting the disease.
Prevention is highly important because many people are becoming infected with this disease. In 2022 alone, 67,000 people received a diagnosis of hepatitis C. The CDC is concerned about this statistic because, after someone has been diagnosed with hepatitis C, the disease will progress to the chronic phase in most cases. These people are not receiving treatment for their condition, and this can lead to liver cancer, cirrhosis or even death.
Although there is no cure for hepatitis C, the medical community in Florida can treat it and cure it as described above. However, this can only happen if people get hepatitis C testing. Once you know you have the disease, you can receive treatment for it.
Treatment for a Substance Use Disorder
Although you may have SSPs in your community, this would solve only half the problem. The other issue is substance use disorder (SUD), and you can receive treatment for it.
What Is Substance Use Disorder?
Substance use disorder (SUD) used to be known as drug addiction, but in recent years, the medical community has become more understanding about the issue. Now, it is called substance use disorder and considered to be a mental health condition.
After extensive study of this condition, healthcare professionals now know that some substances, including both street drugs and prescription medications, cause brain changes that lead to the behaviors that those addicted to substances habitually perform. In the past, people believed that refraining from using harmful substances involved nothing more than willpower, but now, the medical community knows that those addicted to substances must receive treatment for their addictions because they are powerless to stop on their own.
What Happens When People Use Addictive Substances?
Substances cause the brain to release dopamine, the chemical known as the feel-good chemical, and it releases this substance all the while that you are taking your drug of choice. Once the substance wears off, so do the pleasurable feelings, and you want those feelings to return.
Your friends, family members, and neighbors are not experiencing the pleasure you feel with your substance use, and this habit can damage your relationships. People with SUD also experience difficulties in their work lives, at school and in their intimate relationships.
Withdrawal Symptoms
After someone has become addicted to a substance, they find it difficult to refrain from ingesting the drug. That’s why you or a loved one continues to take the drugs while still knowing the damage it’s doing. Withdrawal symptoms present themselves when you try to reduce the amount of substance you are taking or try to stop it altogether.
You’ll begin to experience withdrawal symptoms very soon after you receive your last dose of the drug. These may include mood swings, muscle cramps, difficulty sleeping, sweating, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. To relieve these symptoms, you may resort to using your drug of choice again.
Treatment Options for Substance Use Disorder
When entering a treatment center, the first thing you may need to do is enter the detoxification program. The staff will monitor you 24 hours a day while your body relieves itself of the substances you have been taking. Because this is an unpleasant process, healthcare providers may administer medications that relieve these symptoms so that you can complete it as comfortably as possible.
Detox is highly important because you can’t receive treatment for your substance use disorder until after eliminating your physical addiction to the drug. If you were to start treatment before your body is free of the substance, the treatment would have less of a chance of successfully eliminating your psychological addiction.
After the Detoxification Program
Treatment centers use several different types of therapies to treat their clients for their substance use disorders. These include cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, assertive community treatment and family therapy.
Before you can get to the point of entering a treatment center, you must have hepatitis C testing in Florida. After this test, you will know whether you have the infection, and then you can move forward with treatment for the disease and your substance use disorder. To get help for yourself or a loved one, contact us at LifeLine Health today.
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Most Asked
Is HIV treatable?
How is HIV transmitted?
HIV is primarily transmitted through certain bodily fluids, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluids, and breast milk. The most common ways that people become infected with HIV are through:
Unprotected sexual contact: HIV can be transmitted through unprotected vaginal, anal, and oral sex.
Sharing needles or other equipment to inject drugs: HIV can be transmitted when needles or other equipment that has been used by an HIV-positive person is reused by someone else.
From mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding: HIV can be transmitted from a mother living with HIV to her baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding.
Blood transfusion or organ transplant: HIV can be transmitted through blood transfusions or organ transplants with infected blood or organs.
It’s important to note that HIV is not transmitted through everyday activities like hugging, shaking hands, or sharing utensils.
It’s also worth mentioning that, although the risk of transmitting HIV through oral sex is lower than that of other sexual behaviors, it is still possible to transmit the virus by this way.
I am pregnant and HIV positive. Will my child be born with HIV?
If you are pregnant and living with HIV, it’s important to seek medical care right away. With appropriate medical care and treatment, the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV can be significantly reduced. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is the most effective method for preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. ART can suppress the virus in the mother’s body, lowering the risk of the virus being passed on to the baby during pregnancy, labor, delivery, or breastfeeding. If you’re pregnant and HIV-positive, you’ll be closely monitored by a team of healthcare professionals, including an obstetrician, an HIV specialist and a pediatrician. They will work together to ensure the best possible care for you and your baby. They may advise you to start the ART treatment or adjust the current regimen during pregnancy. This is necessary to achieve an undetectable viral load, which is critical in minimizing the chance of mother-to-child transmission. It’s also important to know that there is a small chance that your child may still become infected despite all the preventative measures. Therefore it’s important to test the baby for HIV shortly after birth and continue monitoring the baby’s HIV status after delivery. It’s worth noting that mother-to-child transmission of HIV is rare in developed countries due to improved treatment and awareness, as long as the mother is diagnosed and treated early.
Listen To What Our Patients Say…
Cristina Anderson
I am thankful to the nice people at Lifeline Health. I was so scared when I found out I had been exposed. They guided me and made me feel so at ease. I have not had an issues and I know it’s because I went to Lifeline Health first.
Juan Bustamonte
