Hepatitis C Symptoms

Hepatitis C is a virus that can infect the liver. If left untreated, it can sometimes cause serious and potentially life-threatening damage to the liver over many years.

However, with modern treatments it's usually possible to cure the infection, and most people with it will have a normal life expectancy.

It's estimated around 215,000 people in the UK have hepatitis C.

You can become infected with it if you come into contact with the blood of an infected person.

Symptoms of Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C often doesn't have any noticeable symptoms until the liver has been significantly damaged. This means many people have the infection without realising it.

When symptoms do occur, they can be mistaken for another condition.

Symptoms can include:

•         Flu-like symptoms, such as muscle aches and a high temperature (fever)
•         Feeling tired all the time
•         Loss of Appetite
•         Abdominal Pain
•         Feeling of and being sick

The only way to know for certain if these symptoms are caused by hepatitis C is to get tested.

How do you get Hepatitis C?

The hepatitis C virus is usually spread through blood-to-blood contact.

Some ways the infection can be spread include:

•       sharing unsterilized needles – particularly needles used to inject recreational          drugs 
•       sharing razors or toothbrushes
•       from a pregnant woman to her unborn baby
•       through unprotected sex – although this is very rare

In the UK, most Hepatitis C infections occur in people who inject drugs or have injected them in the past. It's estimated around half of those who inject drugs have the infection.