Peter V's Story
After being on medication for hepatitis B for more than a decade, Peter’s GI doctor told him that his reduced viral load meant he could stop taking his medication. Just a year and a half later, Peter was in the hospital awaiting a liver transplant. Fortunately, a donor was found, and Peter is recovering well. He realizes that his GI doctor may not have understood the dangers of taking him off his hepatitis B medicine, and he has now found a trusted hepatologist to monitor his condition moving forward.
Discussion Questions and Answers:
Why did Peter decide to stop taking his hepatitis B medication? (When tests found that his viral load was undetectable, his GI doctor felt he no longer needed to be medicated.)
How could Peter have gone from feeling alert and healthy, to being in a medically-induced coma, so quickly? (A damaged liver can still work, until there is too much damage for the liver to do its job. So, most people who have liver damage don’t have symptoms until the liver stops functioning (liver failure), and then they can become symptomatic very quickly”)
After his liver transplant, what new health challenges did Peter have to face? (He lost weight and mobility, and he became diabetic, due to the medicine he needed to take to make sure his body didn’t reject the new liver.)
Related Blog Post: I had a Liver Transplant Because of Hep B: Here’s What You Should Know