For 20 years, health care professional Theresa “Tess” searched for answers for her bone pain and chronic fatigue. #ImNotAverage
- Condition: Hepatitis C
- Age: 49
- Location: Raleigh, NC
Those blind alleys finally gave way to a Christmas Eve, 2012 diagnosis: hepatitis C. It is suspected that the lifesaving blood transfusions Tess received when she was just a baby was the cause of her contracting the virus. Blood banks, at the time where not screened for hepatitis C.
The following year, Tess was enrolled in a clinical trial for a novel therapy that she hoped would treat, and possibly cure her of the disease.
“I have over 20 years of clinical research experience,” Tess says. “For the last two decades, I have conducted various clinical trials from start to finish across the globe but the one thing I did not know about clinical trials, until this experience, was what it was like to be a actual patient participating in a clinical trial.” This has been an invaluable experience for me both personally and professionally.”
What she knows today is that the treatment did work. In 2015, Tess remains virus free and is considered HepCured.