Approximately 4.1 millions Americans have ongoing or previous hepatitis C infection, according to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearing House. The hepatitis C virus attacks the liver, causing 15 percent of all acute viral hepatitis cases, 60 to 70 percent of chronic hepatitis cases and up to 50 percent of cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. Some patients have no symptoms after exposure, while others develop an acute or short-term illness. Approximately 75 percent of patients with acute hepatitis C virus develop a chronic form of the illness.
Step 1
Write down your symptoms. Newly infected individuals may have vague symptoms such as fatigue, dark urine, clay-colored stool, abdominal pain, poor appetite, nausea, vomiting, jaundice or yellowed skin and joint pain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 20 to 30 percent of patients develop symptoms of acute hepatitis C within two to 24 weeks of exposure, including fatigue, abdominal pain, poor appetite or jaundice or yellowed skin. Decades after exposure, liver disease from hepatitis C may cause itching all over your body, abdominal swelling, yellow skin and eyeballs, enlarged liver and spleen and ankle swelling, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Step 2
List your risk factors, if any. Risky activities include contact with the infected blood and body fluids of others through unprotected sexual activity, sharing needles or using street drugs, sharing razors or toothbrushes, receiving a tattoo or acupuncture with contaminated instruments, receiving a contaminated transfusion or working in a health-care environment, according to NIH. Other risk factors include receiving clotting factors for hemophilia before 1987, receiving a blood transplant or organ transplant before 1992 or having long-term kidney dialysis treatments, according to MayoClinic.com.
Step 3
Ask your health-care provider about a hepatitis C screening test. Bring your list of symptoms and risk factors to the appointment. If you have been exposed to hepatitis C, you should have a screening test even if you have no symptoms, according to MayoClinic.com.
Step 4
Follow your health-care provider's instructions regarding blood testing. If the ELISA assay test detects the hepatitis C antibody, you will probably undergo additional testing to determine the level and genetic type of the virus, according to MayoClinic.com. Other tests may be ordered to determine the level of damage to your liver, including serum liver function tests, albumin and prothrombin time.
Step 5
Undergo a liver biopsy, if ordered, to determine the severity of damage to your liver, according to MayoClinic.com.
