What are the symptoms of hepatitis C in women

There are many types of liver diseases. Hepatitis C is a common liver disease and is highly contagious. Although we often hear about hepatitis C, most people don’t know much about it, so they don’t know it after being infected with it. As a result, treatment is delayed, causing great harm to their health. Knowing some of the symptoms of hepatitis C can help to detect and treat it early.

What are the symptoms of hepatitis C in women?

1. Acute hepatitis C

Acute hepatitis C in adults is relatively mild. Most cases are acute non-icteric hepatitis with elevated ALT levels, while a few are acute icteric hepatitis with mild or moderate jaundice. Symptoms such as nausea, loss of appetite, general weakness, yellow urine and yellow eyes may occur. HCV infection alone rarely causes liver failure. Under natural conditions, only 15% of patients can spontaneously clear HCV and achieve recovery. Without antiviral treatment intervention, 85% of patients will develop chronic hepatitis C. After children are acutely infected with hepatitis C virus, 50% can spontaneously clear HCV.

2. Chronic hepatitis C

The symptoms are mild and manifest as common symptoms of hepatitis, such as fatigue, poor appetite, abdominal distension, etc. There may also be no subjective symptoms. The ALT test results fluctuated repeatedly and HCVRNA remained positive. One-third of chronic HCV-infected patients have normal liver function, with persistent positivity for anti-HCV and HCV RNA. Liver biopsy may reveal signs of chronic hepatitis and even cirrhosis.

3. Cirrhosis

After 20 to 30 years of HCV infection, 10% to 20% of patients may develop cirrhosis, and 1% to 5% of patients will develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and die. Once cirrhosis decompensates, such as jaundice, peritoneal effusion, varicose vein bleeding, hepatic encephalopathy, etc., the survival rate drops sharply. Even if there are no obvious symptoms after contracting hepatitis C, timely treatment is still required. Because the damage caused by the hepatitis C virus to the liver is continuous, hidden, and irreversible, more than 80 percent of infected people will develop chronic hepatitis. The proportion of hepatitis C patients who eventually develop cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure is much higher than that of patients with other hepatitis.