I am a person co-infected with HIV/HCV. I was scheduled to begin treatment for HCV using peg-intron and ribovarin. Now the doctor tells me that my T-cell count is too low to begin the treatment. I stopped taking the HIV meds in July '01 because of the adverse effect they were having on my liver. The only way I know to build my T-cell count up is to go back on the meds. My question is will going back on the meds until I'm ready to start the HCV treatment do any more damage to my liver. A liver biopsy indicated stage four fibosis. I'm more concerned about HCV at this point. Any profssional advice from you would be greatly appreciated.
 

It depends on the CD4 count -- if > 200 can treat for HCV. we have even done so in individual cases <200 when we had no options as far as antiHIV meds were concerned. in either event, treatment will have to be monitored extremely carefully.