What are some of the emotional aspects of living with hepatitis C?

Living with Hepatitis C can be challenging; many patients feel helpless, and there is a stigma assigned to the condition. Watch psychiatrist Sudeepta Varma, MD, discuss the emotional issues that Hep C patients experience and solutions that can help.

Transcript

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In fact, I know somebody who's in the medical profession and as part of their job contracted the illness

00:06

and is having difficulty struggling with how do I tell my partner. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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Hepatitis C can become a challenging illness to work with because many people end up feeling helpless.

00:24

Is this a disease that can ever be cured? Will it cause liver problems? Will I get cirrhosis? How will this affect my lifespan?

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How long will I live? Will I be able to tell other people that I have it? How will they view me? There is, unfortunately, a stigma

00:38

associated with hepatitis C, and many people have to live with this. One of the common things that we see associated with hepatitis C

00:46

is depression. And that's for a variety of reasons. Some people think that the depression may be a result of the fatigue that's

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associated with the illness. Other people think that the illness because the virus does cross the blood brain barrier that there

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might be physical changes in the brain that can cause a depression. Perhaps as a result of the treatment, some of the side effects of the medications involve depression.

01:06

And one other theory is that perhaps people with hepatitis C might have already had depression to begin with and perhaps certain risky behaviors

01:13

caused them to engage and increase the risk of contracting hepatitis C. Hepatitis C can affect a number of people.

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And there's a variety of ways in which one person can get it. Some of it might be involving blood transfusions. In fact, I know somebody who's in the medical profession

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and as part of their job contracted the illness, is having difficulty struggling with how do I tell my partner.

01:35

But we can find that if you can confide in someone and get social support, whether it's in the form of perhaps a group, your local hospital,

01:43

really trying to engage support system and trying to address some of the issues of fatigue can help alleviate some of the depression