Day 5 Famvir Trial: Energy 7/10 Dosage: 1.5 grams 4x Daily
the energy is about the same as before but the p5p b6 im taking is helping immensely.
- I will get some liver function labs tomorrow and follow up with my doc
- I will call in to make sure the labs are completed for the viral load.
Based on that I will be able to see if valcyte is a better fit for me and time will tell from that point on.
Seriously, man, you are not going to see progress on a daily basis with antivirals, especially not with ME/CFS. Antivirals slow down viral replication, they don't kill the virus directly. Your immune system still needs to kill off infected cells.
The usual treatment length with antivirals in ME/CFS is 18 months
or more. It will probably be better for your mental health if you do your condition check more like once every month or three, as other members suggested.
My daughter stayed in college the semester she started Valcyte, but she had a LOT of support. She lived at home so she didn't have to take care of daily living issues like cooking, cleaning, or doing laundry. She took the minimum full-time load because she was still exhausted and needed long daily naps. There were days she had to be driven from class to class because she couldn't walk far enough or was nearly passing out in class. She did it, but it was not business-as-usual college -- no social activities, LOTS of rest.
By the following semester -- 9 months after starting Valcyte -- she was doing better, but still needed a lot of rest and had very little time or energy for social activities. It wasn't until 18 months after she started Valcyte that she was functional enough to live in an apartment on campus, have a normal social life, and carry a normal courseload for her major.
My point is this -- Be confident that you can be much better than you are now with aggressive antiviral treatments
and proper pacing and management, but don't fool yourself into thinking everything will be back to normal in a couple of months. Life is not like that with ME/CFS.
FWIW, my daughter had no crash at all with Valcyte, just a slow, steady improvement. I, on the other hand, had a pretty nasty crash, but one I would go through again in a heartbeat to get the same amount of improvement. It's impossible to know how your body will react to Valcyte, but my guess is that the shorter time you've been ill and the stronger your immune system, the less likely you are to have a crash with Valcyte, so you might be in the lucky group.
