Hepatitis C is a viral disease caused by one of the five hepatitis viruses — hepatitis C. This disease is blood borne, and a person can get infected though drops of infected blood which can be so small that they can't be seen with the naked eye. The virus can survive outside the body for up to three weeks, in certain conditions. Even though other bodily fluids, such as semen and vaginal and menstrual fluids, carry the virus, the number of virus particles in these types of fluids is too small to cause an infection.
The most common way of getting infected is by sharing needles and syringes. The other ways include getting a tattoo or a piercing in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, through unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing equipment such as razors and tooth brushes, and sniffing drugs. Less commonly, an infection can spread from mother to child during childbirth. In the past century, getting a blood transfusion also posed a risk, but since all of the blood is routinely being tested for a number of diseases, including hepatitis C, it is not common to get infected this way in western countries today. However, because of the high prices of the tests, some developing countries don't test all donated blood, and this path of infection remains common in some parts of the world.
The liver is a large organ responsible for a number of things; processing food and toxins, storing vitamins, and producing proteins, including enzymes and blood clotting factors, to name a few. The more damage the organs takes, the smaller its capacity to do its job. And as the organ loses some of its functions, certain symptoms start to emerge.
1. Jaundice
This symptom is the easiest one to notice. Jaundice, or icterus, is a condition where tissues, such as skin, mucosa and the whites of the eyes, become yellow. The reason behind this is a molecule called bilirubin. When a red blood cell dies, the hemoglobin molecule (which is found in red blood cells, and is used to transport oxygen through the body) is processed by the liver. The end product of a, somewhat complicated, set of biochemical transformations of hemoglobin is a yellow molecule called bilirubin. Usually, bilirubin is excreted from the organism.
2. Abdominal pain
The liver is positioned in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, just below the rib cage. As any other tissue, the liver too gets enlarged when an inflammation occurs. Although there are no sensory nerves in the liver itself (meaning that we aren't able to feel the liver), there are some nerves connected to the connective tissue that surrounds the organ. As the organ grows larger, the tension in the connective tissue builds up. Signals about this are sent to the brain, which we perceive as pain.
3. Pale stool
Normally, when a person has a healthy liver, the end product of hemoglobin metabolism is excreted from the organ via bile. The bile enters the intestines, helps digest food and is excreted from our organism through defecation. The colored molecules in the bile (the ones coming from hemoglobin) are what gives feces the normal, brown color. If those molecules are lacking, fecal matter will be colored light brown, yellow, or even gray.
4. Loss of appetite and weight loss
5. Skin problems
Skin problems, such as itchiness, are one of the symptoms of liver disease. One of the main roles of the liver is processing and eliminating toxins from the organism. If the organ doesn't have the capacity to do so, these toxins return to the blood and are distributed through the whole body. The spots where are deposited, including the skin, are registered by the nerves. The nerves send the signals to the brain, and we get an itching sensation.
6. Getting bruises easily and prolonged bleeding
The liver produces blood clotting factors. If the concentration of those molecules is lower than normal, even light hits may cause bruises, since the body isn't able to form blood clots when the blood vessel is damaged. The same goes for cuts: it takes our organism more time than usual to form a blood clot in the wound in this situation.
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