My viral load was 59 about 3 years ago, but it never went down further, so treatment was stopped. If blood tests now show that, without further treatment, my viral load has gone down from 4,000,000 to 1,000,000 in 4 months, what is the significance of that?

You still have a high viral load, but there is certainly a significant difference between starting at 4 million rather than 1 million when you think about possible treatment responses. It is unusual to have such a significant change without treatment. Hopefully you will maintain the lower level if you ever go on therapy again.

There are newer drugs that should be available in about 2 to 5 years. You will be an excellent candidate for these therapies since they will be combined at first with interferon and ribavirin. Since you had a good - but not great response to peg and ribavirin in the past - you should do extremely well with a third agent.