Hepatitis C is one of those diseases that are quite hard to detect. It affects the liver and the immune system. The symptoms occur sporadically over a prolonged period. Also, most of the symptoms tend to overlap with other diseases such as flu, jaundice or diarrhea. This makes the diagnosis of Hepatitis C difficult for doctors. Also, patients confuse the symptoms with those of common sicknesses and tend to neglect the early signs of infection. Only later, after a lot of time has passed, they are in for a rude shock when their liver starts malfunctioning. Hence, this disease is also known as a silent killer. Sometimes, the symptoms might go away and sometimes they persist. So, a person may suffer from acute Hepatitis C infection or from persistent or chronic Hepatitis C infection. Acute Hepatitis C: The initial six months of the infection is referred to as acute Hepatitis C. The common symptoms include body aches, fatigue, pain in the upper abdomen, nausea accompanied with vomiting, occasional fever and poor appetite. The symptoms occur within the first three months of infection. They usually last for about two to twelve weeks. Severe symptoms include jaundice, dark urine, and light stool.

In the US, around 16000 cases of acute hepatitis C were reported; this statistic is from nearly a decade ago. Although, there has been advances in the treatment of hepatitis C, this figure more or less remains the same. It has been estimated that nearly 3.5 million people have been living with chronic Hepatitis C. Although, this ailment is widespread, very few know about the facts of Hepatitis C. There can be some misconceptions and confusions, since the disease has symptoms similar to other common diseases such as diarrhea and jaundice. In fact, jaundice is one of the symptoms of Hepatitis C. Also, since there are different strains of the hepatitis virus, people tend to confuse the different types of Hepatitis: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis D, Hepatitis E, Hepatitis V. Here are five things that will help dispel some misconceptions about Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C spreads through contaminated food and water. One of the common causes of the infection is the use of contaminated syringes; make sure the injections used by your health practitioner or physician is new and clean. Hepatitis C can also spread through blood transfusion if the blood is infected with the virus and not screened for infection.