STD HEPATITIS C: WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?
About 70 percent of people who contract hepatitis C do not develop symptoms, so they would not know they had been infected unless they were tested. If symptoms do develop, they are usually mild and occur one to two months after infection. They include jaundice (yellowing of the skin) in about half of those who develop symptoms, nausea and abdominal pain, loss of appetite, and fever. Occasionally the initial symptoms can be severe and even fatal, but this is rare for hepatitis C.
Eighty percent of those infected with hepatitis C become chronic carriers, meaning they exhibit a degree of persistent infection that causes continuing destruction of the liver. Fatigue is the most common symptom at this point. The amount of destruction varies from person to person, and it can be made worse by such other potential causes of liver damage as medications, alcohol, or infection with hepatitis A or B. A person who drinks alcohol and has hepatitis C, for example, has a chance of developing cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) ten times greater than that of someone who is infected with hepatitis C and does not drink alcohol.
Years after first infection (ten to thirty years on average), persons who have chronic infection of the liver due to hepatitis C may develop such serious problems as cirrhosis (which occurs in about 30 percent of those infected with hepatitis C) and cancer of the liver (hepatocellular carcinoma). These problems are more common among people who have sustained other liver damage during that time, such as that caused by alcoholism. It also appears that some types of hepatitis C are more likely to progress to cirrhosis and cancer than other types.
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