Lynne Shanholtzer doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t have tattoos, and hates needles, but still tested positive for Hepatitis C.
The virus tends to be stigmatised due to being a contagious disease associated with illicit drug use, but as Shanholtzer found out – that’s not the only way to contract it.
The 68-year-old New Plymouth woman was in between tests for fatigue when she came across a pop-up clinic at Taranaki Base Hospital for Hepatitis Awareness Week, which this year is taking place from 27 to 31 July.
“I’d been feeling really tired all the time, with dry eyes and mouth and my GP had run all sorts of tests and nothing was coming from it – Hepatitis was never something I had considered a possibility.
“It’s a simple pinprick test. It’s like a pregnancy test and I had about an hour until my next test at the hospital and I just thought ‘can’t do any harm, got nothing better to do’.”
Shanholtzer was the only one out of 150 tests that day that tested positive.
When the result came in Shanholtzer said she was “happy as” and filled with relief.
“I just thought ‘that explains a lot’, and it’s not a death sentence any more.”
Shanholtzer thinks she contracted it from her boyfriend 15 years ago when a tattoo he got became infected from one of the needles, and they were sharing a household.
Hepatitis C affects the liver and if left untreated can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and potentially death.
Although it had been in her system for years, Shanholtzer’s was lucky as her liver was functioning fine.
Hep C is transmitted by blood-to-blood activities that pierce the skin.
Treating it used to mean a year’s worth of injections but now a medication taken three times-a-day for eight to 12 weeks, has the potential to cure more than 99 per cent of cases.
Dr Nadja Gottfert, Taranaki DHB and HealthShare Hep C community support clinician, said the virus was a silent killer because the symptoms could be subtle.
“We don’t have clear figures of how many people have it because we don’t have a database like Australia have but it’s estimated there are about 50,000 people in New Zealand.”
Gottfert said there had been a lot of work going on to try to reduce the stigma around Hep C and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had a goal to eradicate Hepatitis by 2030.
“We don’t care how you got it, we just care that you get tested and treated.
“It’s 100 per cent curable and no one in the modern world should be dying of liver cancer caused by hepatitis.”
