JB Smiths Blog – Author @ books4free.com

If you’ve read my blog for a while or just googled post TX, post interferon headaches, and found this blog, welcome, I went through interferon back in 2006-2007 and beat Hep C, and have never test positive since, which is considered cured thank God!

At the time it was an injection of interferon once a week and pills of ribavirin daily, and it went on for a year, and it was much more than flu-like symptoms, most obviously admitted by the medical community by the fact that within just a few short years of my completing this cycle of medication they were no longer offering it, but opting for a much shortened time line of medication, that not only offered a higher than the 50/50 rate of remission than my cocktail did, but also was closer to a 13 week, rather than 48 week I believe mine was. Anyway I’m not bitching about what my options were at the time. In the words of the 2nd President Roosevelt who served his term in a wheelchair, in secret I might I add “Do what you can, with what you got, right where you are.” My liver was failing, I was dying. That’s that.

After I was cured, I was left I was left with terrible headaches, a surprise side effect, that having conquered, my drinking, and drugging problem that had plagued, me that previous 20 years, and of course, cursed my family childhood years previous, I’d really was hoping for a fresh, clean slate to build my life upon, and when I went into the corporate world I was really thrown back when I found myself in extreme pain, several days out of the week, if not all the way through.

Eventually I found a few treatments, for me it was Prodrin and Sudafed that allowed me to push through the work days that have allowed me the last five years to have steady employment and build a successful sales career back up, but it’s just been fighting through steady headaches with Prodrin, which is a heavy caffeine and Tylenol mix, and then Sudafed is a decongestants and Sudafed is a vasoconstrictint so I believe that sometimes helps, but not all the time. But its made me very antisocial. I’m thought of as angry around the office, and I don’t make enough meetings, don’t like to go out, as a result. I truly have a life that revolves around the headaches as a result.

I tried several different combinations of medications to alleviate the constant pain and wrote about them in this blog  a few years back, off the top of my head, indomethacin works, but kills your stomach, constipation, ulcer-like pain, Zoloft, a slew of other antidepressants and the like, to no avail, for six months stints at a time. And a few months ago, my girlfriend suggested I try Topomax. At first I felt nothing, and it wasn’t until I got to the full dosage, but lo and behold, I am finally feeling a lot better.

Now fair warning, they say you get a bit of brain-fog, and feel dumb. This is not inaccurate. I do software presentations, and could not remember how to spell words that I clearly knew how to spell for a good two weeks. Also I couldn’t remember the name of a place I’d eaten at lunch for five years. Touch of mania as well, sending oddball texts to my boss for a week or so, but I’m way above quota for the year, so I’m in a good place politically for these kinds of antics, and the emotions are definitely starting to settle back down.

Anyway, I can honestly say its the first time since the treatment that I haven’t had a MAJOR migraine and that is huge news. In fact, its hard for me to remember if it was the treatments that caused it or my whole adult life because prior to the treatment i was an alcoholic addict, so I’d have to go back 25 years. before I wasn’t self medicated. I don’t remember having headaches leading up to the interferon, maybe one or two a week or so, i just remember feeling so happy that I was finally cured of alcoholism, and then BOOM finding out my liver was failing. It was that quick, it was just a few months after. It’s been ten years now. I’ve suffered with headaches the majority of that time.

Finally for the last three weeks or so I haven’t. I just pray with the Topomax it holds and I can continue to stay sober and continue to do God’s will and find out what the next leg of the journey is!

Crazy it took me that long to find the right medication. If anyone is struggling with Post Interferon or headaches after your hepatitis C treatments, please try to cycle up to 200 mg of Topomax with your headaches specialist or Neurologist. I thought I had tried everything and nothing worked till I got to that. I even paid $19,000 cash for jaw surgery, I didn’t need! It’s funny, not haha funny, but ironic I guess, not that isn’t the word, either. To a hammer everything looks like a nail I guess, basically every kind of Dr you see, thinks their particular field is probably what is causing your headache. I’m just glad I finally have some relief.

Big news on the book and the website coming soon. Very grateful as always to be ten years sober, and now to be pain-free, and of course with a full long life ahead of me!

Anyway, God’s Will not mine. I just hope that it holds!

Jared Bryan Smith
Author
Founder
Books4Free.com