Reasons As To Why It Is Often Hard To Link Hepatitis C Symptoms With The Condition

Diagnosis of the condition hepatitis C does not really come easy. That is so because even doctors often find it hard to relate the hepatitis C condition to the actual symptoms. It is true that the condition could be diagnosed through certain lab tests. But for the clinician to order these lab tests, he or she needs to have already suspected the condition. Thus, it would be very helpful if there are symptoms that directly point to the condition in order for him to suspect the possibilities of hepatitis C. It would then be important that the symptoms be readily identifiable with the exact condition to merit the clinician's suspicions, thereby encouraging him to order the relevant lab tests.

 In many instances, a patient can consult with many clinicians before they find one who would suspect hepatitis C and would order the relevant tests to confirm his suspicions. The question which naturally arises from here is one as to why it is so hard to link the symptoms of hepatitis C with the condition. Hepatitis C symptoms are so varied that it could not possibly be easy to identify them and clearly relate them to hepatitis C the moment they start manifesting themselves. Hepatitis C is not the type of medical condition that has its own set of fixed and identifiable symptoms. It can actually be asserted that pretty much every case of hepatitis C presents in a unique way.

 As with many conditions, the nature of hepatitis C is such that it is not mandatory for a patient to have all symptoms, in order for him or her to be diagnosed with the condition. Matters are made harder by the fact that given the huge number of symptoms through which hepatitis C can manifest, different patients tend to present with different permutations of the symptoms. A clinician who treats a hepatitis C patient with a given permutation of symptoms on a given day may have difficulties suspecting the same condition (hepatitis C) in another patient who comes the next day, with a different permutation of the symptoms.

The second reason as to why it is so often hard to link hepatitis C symptoms with the condition is the fact that many of the condition's symptoms have a tendency to mimic those of other conditions as well. Often, a patient could be diagnosed with typhoid fever, tuberculosis, or even a case of malaria when, in fact, he is suffering from hepatitis C.

Lack of information or data could also be blamed for the difficulty that clinicians go through in identifying symptoms to hepatitis C. There are times when patients do not provide all the facts. Yet this is a condition which often has to be identified through a clinical process known as differential diagnosis, which requires a doctor to have 'the complete picture.' The patients often think that some of the things they are experiencing are irrelevant: not knowing that informing their clinicians about those things can make the difference between a proper diagnosis and a wrong one.