Hepatitis C in Men

Hepatitis is generally known as a disease of the liver that causes its inflammation. Hepatitis C is a type of hepatitis that could be transmitted by a blood to blood contact. Because of its means of transmission, women are more commonly associated with this disease because of pregnancy, but men could also be victims of this disease.

Men could acquire hepatitis c through blood transfusion, tattoing or injections, sexual intercourse, or any exposure to the blood of a hepatitis c carrier.

Hepatitis c is such a dangerous disease to have because because a lot of people who have this disease do not feel any symptoms at all. They may, however, have extrahepatic symptoms, meaning that they occur outside of the liver, so it could show its symptoms in different parts of the body such as the skin which often misleads people into believing that they have a different disease. It usually takes a while to detect hepatits c. There are some mild symptoms of this disease that could be experienced such as nausea, discomfort in the abdomen and tiredness.

There are minor cases wherein hepatitis c does not develop into a chronic infection. If this is the case, the virus that causes the infection could usually be removed after some months (not more than six months).

There are treatments available to hepatits c patients but the genotypes or genes that constitute a certain hepatitis c virus or HCV is vital because this will determine the outcome of the treatment as different genotypes respond to treatment differently.

According to medical experts, type 1HCV does not react well to any treatment available, especially the type 1b HCV, which is also more likely to cause cirrhosis or a permanent scar on the liver. This happens when a chronic hepatitis c infection reaches up to more than 20 years before getting treatment.