I am really grateful. It has been a great help
I met the Hepatologist few days back. He did the Liver scan as well and I told him that I was diagnosed with HBsAg in 2009 and since then the status is the same. He said that three factors are considered for deciding medication: LFTs, Liver scans to check about any Scarring and the Viral load. In my case, LFTs and liver scan are perfectly fine. The only thing is Viral load which he said that I should keep monitoring periodically. He advised me not to start medication at this stage and make another appointment to recheck the results after three months. If things remain same, he says that I should keep a check of LFTs every six months. According to the Hepatologist, I am an Inactive carrier and I don't need to worry a lot
Sounds like the rigth thing to do. No reasons to start any medicaitons at this stage
Try to maintain a normal ALT and AST level and you would be fine for life.
(Diet, living habbit, use fo supplements etc. might help with ALT and AST)
Can you elaborate a bit about the Healthy diet and Life style particularly in this situation please? I mean what not to eat and what not to do etc?
If you are happy with decision as the patient, then that's good.
I hope your hepatologist is up to date with all recent developments, such as these published just last year..
Minerva Gastroenterol Dietol. 2015 Oct 8..."The unique replication strategy employed by HBV enables its persistence within the infected hepatocytes [that means Hep B viral cells will always be in the liver tissue cells and have a sneaky way of replicating or increasing]...The persistence of the HBV genome, as well as the inability of the immune system to resolve chronic HBV infection are believed to be key mechanisms of HBV chronicity...." [in other words, your viral load can go up (or down) without affecting your ALT level and without you knowing unless you have a HBV DNA very frequently. My ALT can change from 28 to 99 in a week]
Curr Opin Virol. 2015 Oct;..."Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major cause of chronic liver disease, including liver cirrhosis, liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)-the second leading and fastest rising cause of cancer death world-wide. While de novo infection can be efficiently prevented by vaccination, chronic infection can be controlled using antivirals targeting the viral polymerase"
He is not really following the current European Association For The Study of The Liver (EASL) clinical practice guidelines: "Management of chronic hepatitis Bvirus infection, 2014". where liver specialist from all over Europe have got together and decided on a prudent treatment plan, and say: Patients should be considered for treatment when HBV DNA levels are above 2000 IU/ml
Hi, I'm in a similar state with about 5000 IU/ml (21000 copies) with all other indicators in normal limts (CRP, SGOT, SGPT, PHOS ALCALINES, ALBUMIN; etc) except 24 mic mol/l bilirubin (may be genetic?). I'm HAV immune(IgG positive).
The specialiste didn't recommend any medications in my case. However, I'm thinking of Interferons therapy as it is short terme and doesnt developpe a viral resistence (mutation).
Hi Bolly, I've been reading this thread but from what I heard from hepa doctor is that Tenofovir has no known resistance and plus people aren't on it for life. Only until body developed antibodies
Hi Ivan, how long have you been on antivirals and which one? Any side effects?
Hi, Muhammad.
Is your HBsAg positive?
Yes it is. HBsAg is positive.