Yes, your 3.3U/ml are considered as a H.pylori IgG positive result.
Is it high? No it is not.
But as said, it doesn't matter if high or not,
positive is positive and the value itself has only relevance if retested.
Do we know if you have an infection right now? No, we don't.
The breath test (like biopsies and stool) is the test, to see, if the bacteria is there right now (and not a passed infection or cross reaction).
Breath test: nothing to eat and drink beforehand.
You swallow a capsule with very little amount of liquid.
One would wish to drink more, a cup, but no, you get two gulps of water, be a good capsule swallower please.
There is no taste.
The capsule contains food (urea) for the H.pylori and if they are there, their H.pylori enzyme (urease) will digest it, you breath out the radioactive broken up carbon dioxide (into a foil balloon, which gets tied and sent off to lab) ...which couldn't be in your breath otherwise, if the Hpylori did not do the work to split it off.
It's really a cool and easy test.
Our immune system (the mix of white blood cells) do everything for us to stay healthy.
Now, H.pylori bacteria is within your stomach lining,
sometimes burried in the mucosa, sometimes attached on top of lining, that's where it lives (that's where it can be visually seen after staining a biopsy slice),
it can't live anywhere else (e.g. guts, unless duodenum is acid damaged) and it is not in your blood!,
but your white blood cells can migrate out of a blood vessle through tiny pores into tissue (it's extremely fascinating) and detects the culprit, detects the foreign protein (antigen) and makes a fitting antibody against it in order to mark and destroy it (called humoral immune response in contrary to cellular response).
This IgG antibody (Ig= immunoglobulin) is, what is measured in your blood since those cells return to the blood stream and excrete the IgG there, too.
What I never quite understood, when we form an immune response, why can't it be killed? :
I had a read through and it is highly complex, the H.pylori is quite good in escaping not only within mucosa, but attach onto the lining, where white blood cells can't get to eat it after marking and kind of protects itself against humoral antibodies, on the other hand, without any immune response, the growth would be much more, it is said.
That, what we call 'gastritis' is nothing else, than the white blood cells infiltrating = inflamming your wall in order to fight or heal.
But to no avail it seems.
Having said so,
many people have H.pylori and no problem, no gastritis.
Some say, it is so old and has been living with humans for so long, that it might have its benefit for other conditions.
There are many different strains of H.pylori with a bit of different biochemistry in them and that seems to be the difference.
Also not all H.pylori lead to cancer, very small proportion, but when stomach cancer is found, a H.pylori is almost always present.
So the conclusion is the other way round.
(like with HPV for cervical cancer)
But if you have gastritis and suffer H.pylori,
you want to get this under control, not because of cancer risk, because of life comfort now....and down the track cancer possibility.
If one has H.pylori and no symptoms, there is no need to do anything it seems, the balance seems to be good without gastritis or ulcers or cancer.
No one gets tested therefore without symptoms.
You have a good doc.
Some swear by Matula tea for eradication btw. I have no experience with it.
There is a really cool page, but really hard to read through, but shows the complexity. It's not quite easy to bring it down to a simple denominator.
I try to post it, but might get deleted.
As to blood groups....the red blood cell membrane is not smooth, it has many also very old and rudementary 'twigs' and 'bumps', the strongest antigen A and B form antibodies to AB system, form from food only (since A B are made up from food like antigens), all other antibodies form only after contact. It's another huge field.
H.pylori has two bumps on its surface, that look like our red blood cell Lewis-a/x antigens, that some of us have on their red blood cells.
Usually what we carry ourselfs on cell surfaces, is not recognised by immune system as foreign hence the tendency maybe.
My father has O and no stomach issues, my mum B and a lot of stomach issues, but my aunt with B does not.. I don't quite swallow the whole simplified ABO blood type tendency for sickness. There is much more to it than a bump (antigen) called A, a bump called B and someone having no A or B bumps being called O or someone having both on cell surface being AB. It is so the most important blood group for transfusions because antibodies are already in serum and destroy explosively foreign A B blood due to pre-existing antibodies without prior blood contact.
But that's a different story.
Humans always tried to explain everything and did observations,
some experiences and observations proved to have some grounds, others were pure desperate trials for easy explanations.
I have no idea if bloodgroup O stomach issue tendency was proven or not and if yes, as to why.
If someone knows, enlighten us.