Hepatitis C, which is transmitted from the blood of infected people, destroys the liver slowly and silently: Patients typically have no symptoms. They look fine and feel great for 10 years or more. When signs of the disease do appear, the liver has been damaged, and patients may feel fatigue, fever, nausea, and muscle and joint pains.
Baby boomers – those born between 1945 and 1965 – who have used intravenous drugs or had blood transfusions with tainted products are most at risk. One in 30 boomers has hepatitis C, with boomers accounting for more than 75% of the cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That's why the CDC advises boomers to be tested for the virus. Luckily for them, they no longer face long, debilitating treatments if they do have the virus.
"Hepatitis C is no longer a diagnosis to fear," says Jonathan Fenkel, M.D., assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and director of the Jefferson Hepatitis C Center. "Get diagnosed now, and the virus can be gone" in a few months with the new treatments.
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