If You Can't Get Sovaldi, What's Available For Treating Hepatitis C?

Liver cancer patients who don't have the considerable amounts of cash or the good medical coverage that pays for Sovalid often can still get the older drugs that are used in combination with interferon. The problem with this plan, of course, is that most people feel miserable when they are on interferon. Nothing in this article is intended to dissuade anyone from following their doctor's advice, but there are modifications in lifestyle that can also help control hepatitis C.

Just Say No to Excess Calories

One of the easiest and least expensive (in fact, you may even spend less money) ways to deal with hepatitis C naturally is just to eat less, especially less carbohydrate. When you eat more carbohydrate, your pancreas releases more insulin to keep the levels of sugar in your bloodstream normal. When there is more insulin in circulation, cells in your liver shut down some of their receptor sites for insulin so they aren't flooded with sugar they have to convert into glycogen or fatty acids. The resulting insulin resistance keeps liver cells from 'burning out" with overwork, but it also changes the interior chemistry of the liver cell in ways that favor the replication of the virus.

Improving insulin resistance, on the other hand, provides the virus with less of its sugary fuel and helps keep it in check. It isn't necessary to starve yourself to starve the virus. It's only necessary to eat less sugar, less flour, and fewer starchy foods so that the pancreas doesn't have to produce as much insulin, the liver doesn't have to resist insulin, and the virus inside liver cells stays quiet.

People who have hepatitis C are about 50% more likely than the general public to have insulin resistance. While there is still some discussion as to whether insulin resistance aggravates hepatitis C or hepatitis C aggravates insulin resistance, it is known that people who have the virus who lose just 2 to 5% of their body weight by eating less (not by exercising more) are less likely to suffer cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer. Giving up a jelly donut doesn't sound like such a terrible price to pay for avoiding liver cancer.

Read More: Managing Hepatitis C with Interferon Therapy

Just Say Maybe to Natural Health Supplements

There are a number of nutritional supplements that won't hurt--as long as you don't use them to replace any prescribed mediations--and may help in hepatitis C.  Mainstay of herbal hepatitis treatment milk thistle, best taken as a silymarin phytosome (a special form of a milk thistle extract) seems to block the entry of the virus into uninfected cells as well as to stop the activation of immune cells to destroy liver cells to get rid of the virus.

You should not use silymarin or milk thistle if you have been told you have biliary duct cancer or stenosis of the bile duct. Several Chinese and Japanese herbal formulas are well known as effective in treatment of hepatitis B, but not hepatitis C, and should never be used by people who are on interferon.