Hepatitis C

💡 Hepatitis C is a disease caused by a virus that can be transmitted through blood from one person to another.
📍The hepatitis C virus (HCV) was first identified in 1989. The pathology mainly affects the liver.

⏳The incubation period (from the moment of infection to the appearance of symptoms) lasts from 2 weeks to 6 months, most often 45-60 days.
The main danger of this form of hepatitis lies in early diagnosis. The reason for this is the complete absence of symptoms or their minor manifestations.

📍Symptoms:
– increased sweating (especially at night);
– increased body temperature;
– arthralgia (joint pain, aches);
– loss of appetite, nausea;
– heaviness in the epigastric region;
– feeling of discomfort in the right hypochondrium (due to bile stasis or inflammation of the gallbladder);
– impaired concentration, inattention;
– rapid fatigue;
– spider veins, itching, rash;
– digestive disorders (constipation, diarrhea);
– light-colored, discolored stool;
– dark urine;
– moderate increase in liver size;
– general weakness, dizziness.

🩸Acute hepatitis C - clear contact with infection, positive viral RNA for 6 months or an increase in serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), or seroconversion, in which antibodies and / or hepatitis C virus RNA are absent in the first sample and present in the second. Blood tests show an increase in bilirubin, liver tests.

‼️70-75% patients who have had an acute form of hepatitis C develop a chronic form.

🩸 Chronic hepatitis C is a continuous disease of hepatitis C outside the acute phase. It is characterized by mild symptoms, which poses a great danger to the patient's health. Pronounced symptoms begin to appear in severe stages: weight loss, itching of the skin, enlargement of the liver and spleen, spider veins, bleeding.