I went in for my monthly phlebotomy today. I do this to reduce the iron in my system from the Porphyria Cutanea Tarda. I was wondering in an earlier post about why it seems I’ve suddenly slowed my rush towards cirrhosis and the inevitable HCC. I passed on some interesting links to this about Coumadin usage as a blood thinner and its beneficial effect on the liver in an earlier post this week.

I think the phlebotomies I’ve been receiving since November 1992 might have something to do with it as well. Think about this. I  have had over 160 phlebotomies since then and each represents 800 milliliters or approximately 1 pint each.  According to the American Red Cross, it takes the human body 57 days to regenerate one pint .The average human body contains about 10 pints. There are 8 pints to a gallon and 160 pints equals 20 gallons. That, my friend, is a shitton of blood to pour down the drain. Each time I suspect it removes a lot of HCV virus in addition to the iron I’m trying to decrease. It makes sense my viral count would be lower afterwards.

Our good friends at Hepatitis Central supplied me with this tidbit:

http://www.hepatitis-central.com/hcv/iron/effect.html

Who would have thunk it? I have to say I was doing this once every three weeks to get it down in the beginning in 92, but once a week? That would have to be hitching a ride on the anemia express. I have an upcoming  Liver Function Test coming up in 10 days at the VAMC. I happen to know from my civilian doctor that it was 300 on the 16th of October. It will be interesting to see if it goes down.

My VA-appointed “hepatologist”,  Nurse Eileen H., is a real-life Nurse Ratched. She refused my last request for a viral load count (VLC) when I was really feeling punky in July. Most heppers don’t realize this , but if you have AIH and it’s really cooking in you, your VLC will shoot way up. Mine usually is about 28 K and my personal best is 8.4 million after one dose of IFX.. It goes up and down and was 200K recently. This tells me it may be up to its old tricks and busy eating my liver like PACMAN. I conned my new VA PCP into running it for me several weeks later. Eileen will undoubtedly be pissed off and frown a lot but it’s my life, not hers. She’s not even an MD- just a lowly ARNP. It will be interesting to see if the AST/ALT decrease with this latest phlebotomy.  Here’s another little trick I use. I qualify for medicare now so I play them off against the VA and use both to keep track of what’s going on. My old PCT doctor would write a prescription for phlebotomies for my dog if I asked him to. He used me in a 1994 AMA article about PCT and the relationship to HCV, HBV,  and the rainbow herbicides by Dow. Anytime I ask, he cuts me a new one. It’s not like it’s an Oxycontin scrip, now is it? There can’t be many who are into bloodletting a la George Washington.

Trust the Israelis to find this one out:

http://munstermom.tripod.com/phlebs.htm  Look down to the third article and click on Beneficial effect of phlebotomies on HCV.

I guess in retrospect I really lucked out eating a lot of Agent Orange and having the VA give me a heart attack, huh? I may be plowing new ground in the Coumadin/ phlebotomy pasture for all I know. If I’m still kicking in 10 years, I’ll be sure to tell everyone my theory. It may become standard protocol for non-responders if they don’t find something sooner. Stranger things have happened. What the hey? It sure can’t hurt having a few less Hepbugs and a pound of iron running round my veins.