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Hepatitis C is an infection that can harm your liver. It is caused by a virus that is carried in blood. You can catch it if blood from an infected person gets into your body. You may not know you have hepatitis C because there often aren't any symptoms.

Some people with hepatitis C stay healthy all their life. But, some people's liver gets badly damaged by the infection. Unfortunately, there isn't any way to tell what will happen to you. But there are treatments that may get rid of the virus. Getting rid of the virus makes it less likely that you will get liver damage.

• You can become infected by the hepatitis C virus if blood from a person with hepatitis C gets into your body.¹
• You are most likely to get hepatitis C if you share needles to inject illegal drugs, such as heroin.^{2 3} But you can get it in other ways too.
• The only way to find out for sure if you are infected is to have a blood test. For more information, see Should I be tested for hepatitis C?
• You may not get any symptoms from hepatitis C. But if the virus stays in your body for a long time, you may get serious liver damage.³
• You can take treatments that may get rid of the virus. But the treatments don't work for everyone. And they have unpleasant side effects.
• If you have hepatitis C, you can do some things that make it more likely you'll stay well, such as drinking less alcohol and eating healthy foods.

When finding out what can happen when you get hepatitis C, it helps to learn a bit about what your liver does. Then you will understand the problems you can get if your liver is damaged.

Your liver is just under your ribs, on the right side of your body. It weighs about 4 pounds. That makes it one of the biggest organs in your body.⁴

Your liver does more than 500 different jobs in your body. Some of the things your liver does are listed below.⁴

• It turns your food into a substance (called glucose) that your muscles can use for energy.
• It breaks down harmful substances and wastes in your body, including alcohol and many medications.
• It fights infections.
• It makes many of the chemicals in your body: for example, ones that help your blood clot and ones that help your wounds to heal.

If you have only had liver damage for a short time, you may feel fine. You can get by with less than half of your liver working. So, it may take many years before you get any symptoms of liver damage. Also, your liver can get better if the damage lasts only a short while. But if the damage goes on for a long time (many months or years), it can stop your liver from working properly.

The virus that causes hepatitis C is carried in human blood. You can catch it if blood from someone with the virus gets into your body and then into your bloodstream. This could be just a tiny bit of blood. You might not even be able to see it.

When the hepatitis C virus gets to your liver, it causes inflammation. You might feel sick for a while. But you might not notice any symptoms at all.⁵ If you have recently been infected with the hepatitis C virus, your body may fight off the virus naturally, without any treatment. This happens in about 2 in 10 people.³ But usually the virus stays in your body.

If you have had the infection for more than six months, doctors say you have chronic hepatitis C. Chronic means an illness that is long-term. Eventually (usually after many years), having chronic hepatitis C may cause scarring in your liver and stop your liver from working properly.⁵

If your liver isn't working properly, all the jobs that it does are affected. So, you may not have enough energy. You may get more infections than normal. And wastes may build up in your body. These things can put your life in danger.

There are six types of hepatitis C virus, which all have different genes. Doctors call the types genotypes. They are numbered 1 to 6. It is important to know which type you have. That's because the type of hepatitis C virus you have affects the chance that treatment will work for you.

Almost all people in the United States who have hepatitis C have genotype 1, genotype 2 or genotype 3. You are almost twice as likely to get rid of the hepatitis C virus with treatment if you have genotype 2 or genotype 3 than if you have genotype 1.^{3 6}

It can be a shock to find out that you have hepatitis C. You may wonder how you caught the virus. We've listed some of the ways this can happen below. But some people never find out how it happened.

There are two main ways that people catch the hepatitis C virus.

• Most people who get hepatitis C are infected by sharing needles to inject illegal drugs.^{2 3}
• Before 1992, some people were accidentally given transfusions of blood infected with hepatitis C.⁵ Since then, the government has used new ways to check the blood that's used for transfusions. So, your chance of being infected with hepatitis C from a blood transfusion is now tiny.^{3 5}

There are some other ways you can catch the hepatitis C virus. But these are less common.

• Some people were accidentally given products made from blood that was infected before 1992. For example, they had hemophilia and to treat it were given products that help blood clot. (If you have hemophilia, your blood doesn't clot properly). But strict checks have been in place since then.⁵ So, your chance of getting infected this way is now tiny.^{3 5}
• Sometimes health care workers such as doctors and nurses get injured by needles. For example, this could happen when giving shots to patients. If you scratch yourself with a needle that has been used to treat someone with hepatitis C, you can catch the virus.⁵
• Some babies are born with hepatitis C because their mothers have the virus.

There's also a small chance that you can get hepatitis C if you have sex and you don't use a condom (unprotected sex). Doctors aren't sure if the virus is passed on in semen or just in blood. But you are at risk if:⁵

• You have unprotected sex with many different people
• You regularly have unprotected sex with someone who has hepatitis C.

You can't catch hepatitis by kissing, cuddling or holding hands. And you can't get it by using household items such as plates or knives and forks that are also used by someone who has the virus.⁵

If you have hepatitis C, there are things you can do to cut down the risk of passing the virus on to other people. For more information, see Cutting the risk of passing on hepatitis C.

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment. ©BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2008. All rights reserved.