Erica Harris
Professor Hester
Freshmen English 111, Section 010
8 March 2011
Hepatitis C Awareness
There are numerous chronic diseases and illnesses that we are all aware of in today’s world. Diseases such as sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, HIV, heart disease, the different types of cancers and recently the HPV virus among others are the trending life or death diseases in which we are all aware of. Although Hepatitis C is a known condition, many people do not consider it to be a life or death condition because it does not have high mortality rates such as cancer. The truth is Hepatitis C can be deadly.
hepatitis C is cause by a virus that attacks the liver and leads to inflammation. Many people who have hepatitis C do not know that they have it until there is already some liver damage. There are two types of hepatitis C; acute and chronic. In acute is when you have it for only short amount of time and chronic is when you have it for a very long time. Some signs and symptoms that you may have hepatitis C are: fatigue, joint pain, stomach pain, itchy skin, sore muscles, dark urine, jaundice, nausea, and tenderness in liver area.
There is no vaccine for hepatitis C. If you have an acute form of hepatitis C your doctor will prescribe antiviral medications for you to take. The side effects of these medications are flu like symptoms and depression, some side effects may be sever enough in which treatment may need to be stopped. There is not any alternative medicines or and natural remedies that can be used to treat hepatitis C. Since many people do no know or realize that they have hepatitis C until their liver has been damaged it is usually too late for treatment to occur.
The hepatitis C virus are is transmitted when you come in contact with contaminated blood; blood transfusions, childbirth, shared needles, and sexual contact. The risk of infection is increased if you are; a health care worker and are exposed to contaminated blood, have...