You May Have Side Effects with PEGASYS Therapy
Both PEGASYS and COPEGUS® (Ribavirin, USP) have been proven safe for treating hepatitis C. However, side effects are common with hepatitis C treatment, and you should know about them. The most common side effect is flu-like symptoms (including fever, chills, muscle aches, joint pain, and headaches), which can be treated.
Other common side effects associated with pegylated interferon plus ribavirin therapy include:
- Fatigue (tiredness)
- Upset stomach (like nausea, taste changes, diarrhea)
- Blood sugar problems (may lead to diabetes)
- Redness and swelling at injection site
- Skin problems (like rash, dry or itchy skin)
- Hair loss (temporary)
- Trouble sleeping
In choosing to start treatment, you and your doctor compared the risk of possible side effects against the risks of not treating HCV:
- Inflammation, which hurts the liver's ability to store nutrients and remove toxins from the body
- Cirrhosis, in which normal liver cells die and are replaced by scar tissue, which may lead to liver cancer
Possible serious side effects, which your doctor or nurse can talk to you about, include: risk to pregnancies; mental health problems (such as irritability, depression, anxiety, aggressiveness, trouble with drug addiction or overdose, thoughts about suicide, suicide attempts, suicide, thoughts about homicide, and hallucinations); blood problems (like a drop in blood cells leading to increased risk for infections, bleeding and/or heart or circulatory problems); infections (which sometimes cause death), lung problems (like trouble breathing, pneumonia); eye problems (like blurred vision, loss of vision); autoimmune problems (such as psoriasis, thyroid problems); heart problems (including chest pain, and rarely, a heart attack); rash with fever or blisters; weakness, loss of coordination, and numbness due to stroke; and liver problems (rarely, liver function worsens). Patients with both the hepatitis C virus and HIV can have an increased chance of having liver failure during PEGASYS treatment. Change in a blood test that measures liver inflammation occurs more often in patients with hepatitis B. If you have a rise in this blood test you may need to be watched more closely with additional blood tests.
Everyone's experience with PEGASYS and COPEGUS will be slightly different. So be sure to talk with your doctor or nurse if you have questions about side effects. They can help you understand the types of side effects you can expect at various stages of therapy, as well as what you can do to cope with them.
Continue to learn about PEGASYS if you are HIV-positive