Being diagnosed with hepatitis C can change your life. You may feel angry or depressed about having to live with a long-term (chronic), serious disease. You may have a hard time knowing how to tell other people that you have the virus. It can be helpful to talk with a social worker or counselor about what having the disease means to you. You also may want to find a support group for people with hepatitis C. If you do not have a support group in your area, there are several on the Internet.

You may or may not receive treatment for hepatitis C, depending on how damaged your liver is, other health conditions you have, how much virus you have in your body, and what type (genotype) of hepatitis C you have. Treatment is not always an option, because the medicines used to treat hepatitis C have serious side effects, are expensive, and do not work for everyone.

The goal of treatment for hepatitis C is to eliminate the virus from your body early, to prevent serious liver problems. The length of treatment for hepatitis C depends on whether you have a short-term (acute) infection or a long-term (chronic) infection. It may also depend on the type of hepatitis C virus causing the infection and how well the medicine seems to be working.

Treatment of short-term (acute) hepatitis C

Most people with acute hepatitis C do not get treated, because they do not know they have the virus.

If a person knows that he or she may have been exposed to the virus-such as a health care worker who is stuck by a needle-acute hepatitis C can be identified early. Most people who are known to have an acute hepatitis C infection get treated with medicine. In these cases, treatment for acute hepatitis C may help prevent long-term (chronic) infection, although there is still some debate over when to begin treatment and how long to treat acute hepatitis C.^{3, 4}

Treatment of long-term (chronic) hepatitis C

It is common for people to live with hepatitis C for years without knowing they have it, simply because they do not have symptoms. Most people diagnosed with hepatitis C find out that they already have long-term, chronic infection. If your blood tests and liver biopsy show that you have chronic infection but no damage to your liver, you may not need treatment. If you do have some liver damage, you may be treated with a combination of medicines that fight the viral infection.

Whether or not you take medicines to treat hepatitis C, you will need to have routine blood tests to help your doctor know how well your liver is working.

If you decide not to be treated with medicines, your doctor will want to monitor you closely and may want to do a liver biopsy every 4 or 5 years to check for damage in your liver.