If I Have Had Hepatitis B in the Past Can I Get It Again?

Hepatitis B

What Is Hepatitis B?

Hepatitis B is an infection of your liver. It'due south caused by a virus. In that location is a vaccine that protects against it. For some people, hepatitis B is mild and lasts a short fourth dimension. These "acute" cases don't always demand treatment. But it can become chronic. If that happens, it tin can cause scarring of the organ, liver failure, and cancer, and it even tin exist life-threatening.

Information technology'south spread when people come in contact with the blood, open sores, or body fluids of someone who has the hepatitis B virus.

It's serious, but if you get the affliction as an developed, it shouldn't final a long time. Your body fights information technology off within a few months, and y'all're immune for the residuum of your life. That means you tin't go it again. But if you lot go it at nascence, information technology' unlikely to go away.

"Hepatitis" means inflammation of the liver. At that place are other types of hepatitis. Those caused past viruses too include hepatitis A and hepatitis C.

Hepatitis B Symptoms

Curt-term (acute) hepatitis B infection doesn't always cause symptoms. For case, it's uncommon for children younger than 5 to have symptoms if they're infected.

If you lot practise take symptoms, they may include:

Jaundice (Your skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellowish, and your pee turns brown or orange.)
Lite-colored poop
Fever
Fatigue that persists for weeks or months
Tummy trouble similar loss of ambition, nausea, and vomiting
Belly pain
Joint pain

Symptoms may not testify upwardly until 1 to 6 months later on y'all catch the virus. You might not feel annihilation. About a third of the people who take this disease don't. They find out only through a blood test.

Symptoms of long-term (chronic) hepatitis B infection don't always show up, either. If they do, they may exist similar those of short-term (acute) infection.

Hepatitis B Causes and Gamble Factors

Information technology'southward caused by the hepatitis B virus, and it can spread from person to person in sure ways. You tin spread the hepatitis B virus even if you don't experience sick.

The most common ways to get hepatitis B include:

Sexual activity. You lot can become it if yous have unprotected sex with someone who has it and your partner's blood, saliva, semen, or vaginal secretions enter your body.
Sharing needles. The virus spreads easily via needles and syringes contaminated with infected blood.
Adventitious needle sticks.Health care workers and anyone else who comes in contact with human blood tin become it this manner.
Mother to kid.Pregnant women with hepatitis B tin pass it to their babies during childbirth. Just there's a vaccine to prevent newborns from condign infected.

Hepatitis B doesn't spread through kissing, food or water, shared utensils, coughing or sneezing, or through bear upon.

How Mutual Is Hepatitis B?

The number of people who become this disease is down, the CDC says. Rates have dropped from an boilerplate of 200,000 per year in the 1980s to around xx,000 in 2016. People between the ages of 20 and 49 are most likely to get it.

About 90% of infants and 25-50% of children between the ages of 1-5 will go chronically infected. In adults, approximately 95% will recover completely and volition not become on to accept a chronic infection.

As many equally i.2 meg people in the U.Due south. are carriers of the virus.

Hepatitis B Diagnosis

If your doctor thinks you may accept it, they'll give you lot a complete physical test. They will exam your blood to see if your liver is inflamed. If you lot have hepatitis B symptoms and high levels of liver enzymes, you'll exist tested for:

Hepatitis B surface antigen and antibody (HBsAg). Antigens are proteins on the hepatitis B virus. Antibodies are proteins made by your immune cells. They show upwards in your claret between one and 10 weeks after exposure. If y'all recover, they get away afterwards 4 to vi months. If they're however there later on 6 months, your status is chronic.
Hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs). These show up after HBsAg disappears. They're what make you immune to hepatitis B for the rest of your life.

If your disease becomes chronic, your md might take a tissue sample from your liver, called a biopsy. This volition tell them how severe your case is. Yous might too get a liver ultrasound to check on how much liver damage there is.

Hepatitis B Treatment

If you think y'all've been exposed to the virus, get to a physician every bit soon as possible. The earlier you get treatment, the better. They'll requite you a vaccine and a shot of hepatitis B immune globulin. This protein boosts your immune organisation and helps it fight off the infection.

If you do become sick, your doc may put you on bed remainder to assistance you lot get better faster.

You'll have to give up things that tin can hurt your liver, like alcohol and acetaminophen. Cheque with your medico before taking any other drugs, herbal treatments, or supplements. Some of them tin impairment this organ, likewise. Also, swallow a good for you diet.

If the infection goes away, the md volition tell you you're an inactive carrier. That means at that place'south no more virus in your body, but antibody tests will prove that yous had hepatitis B in the past.

If the infection is active for longer than 6 months, your doctor will tell you lot that you have chronic active hepatitis B. They may prescribe some of these medications to treat information technology:

Adefovir dipivoxil (Hepsera). This drug, which yous take as a tablet, works well for people who don't reply to lamivudine. High doses can cause kidney problems.
Entecavir (Baraclude). This is taken once a mean solar day with few side effects. It is considered the forepart line treatment.
Interferon alfa (Intron A, Roferon A, Sylatron). This medicine boosts your immune system. Y'all take it as a shot for at least 6 months. It doesn't cure the disease. Information technology treats liver inflammation.
Lamivudine (3tc, Epivir A/F, Epivir HBV, Heptovir). Information technology comes as a liquid or tablet you accept in one case a mean solar day. Almost people don't take a problem with it. But if you have it for a long fourth dimension, the virus might stop responding to the drug.
Pegylated Interferon(Pegasys) Long-interim interferon,is given by injection in one case a week usually for 6 months to a year. Just this drug tin make you lot feel bad all over or depressed, and it tin can and zap your appetite. Information technology also lowers your white blood cell count, which makes information technology harder to fight off infection.
Telbivudine (Tyzeka) is an antiviral medication. Resistance to this medication is mutual.
Tenofovir alafenamide (Vemlidy). These tablets are taken 6 to 12 months.
Tenofovir disoproxil fumerate (Viread). This drug comes as a pulverization or tablet. If you take information technology, your doctor volition check often to make sure it doesn't hurt your kidneys.

Hepatitis B Complications

Although most people with chronic hepatitis B don't feel ill or even know they accept information technology unless information technology's in its belatedly stages, some practice take serious complications. Chronic hepatitis B can lead to:

Cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver. This makes it harder for the liver to practice its work and can eventually lead to liver failure.
Liver cancer. If you accept chronic hepatitis B, your doctor may recommend that y'all become an ultrasound exam to run across if there are any signs of liver cancer.
Liver failure. This is when your liver is no longer able to exercise its work. Yous may also hear it called "end-phase" liver disease. This merely happens in severe cases of chronic hepatitis B.
Kidney disease. Researchers accept constitute that people with cirrhosis caused by hepatitis B may exist more probable to accept certain types of kidney disease.
Blood vessel problems. These include inflammation of the blood vessels.

Hepatitis B and Pregnancy

If you're meaning, you might pass the virus to your babe at birth. It's less likely to happen during your pregnancy.

If your babe gets the virus and isn't treated, they could have long-term liver problems. All newborns with infected mothers should go hepatitis B immune globulin and the vaccine for hepatitis at nascence and during their first yr of life.

Hepatitis B Prevention

To help keep a hepatitis B infection from spreading:

Go the hepatitis B vaccine (if you haven't already been infected). It's key to prevention, and the CDC recommends it for all babies built-in in the U.Southward., all kids and teens younger than xix who haven't already gotten this vaccine, and at-risk people.
Employ condoms every time yous have sexual activity.
Wear gloves when you clean upwardly later others, peculiarly if you lot take to touch bandages, tampons, and linens.
Encompass all open cuts or wounds.
Don't share razors, toothbrushes, nail intendance tools, or pierced earrings with anyone.
Don't share chewing mucilage, and don't pre-chew food for a baby.
Make sure that any needles for drugs, ear piercing, or tattoos -- or tools for manicures and pedicures -- are properly sterilized.
Make clean up blood with one function household bleach and ten parts water.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that people in these groups get screened for hepatitis B:

All meaning women
People born in countries or regions where hepatitis B is common
People born in the U.S. who weren't vaccinated as babies and whose parents are from countries or regions where hepatitis B is common (such every bit sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia)
People who are HIV-positive
People who inject drugs
Men who take sex with men
People who live with or accept sex with someone who has hepatitis B

Can I Become It From Blood Transfusions?

Donated blood is tested for the virus, so your chances of getting the affliction from a transfusion are low. Any infected blood is discarded.

Who Should Get the Hepatitis B Vaccine?

All newborn babies should go vaccinated. You should likewise get the shot if you:

Come in contact with infected claret or torso fluids of friends or family members
Utilize needles to accept recreational drugs
Have sexual activity with more than than one person
Are a health care worker
Work in a day-care center, school, or jail

Is Hepatitis B Curable?

There is no cure for hepatitis B. But again, it often goes away in a few months, and it sometimes disappears in people who have a chronic example of the illness.

What'south the Prognosis for Hepatitis B?

Your md will know you've recovered when you no longer have symptoms and blood tests bear witness:

Your liver is working usually.
You have hepatitis B surface antibody.

But some people don't get rid of the infection. If you lot have it for more than than six months, you're what'south called a carrier, even if you don't have symptoms. This ways you can requite the disease to someone else through:

Unprotected sex
Contact with your blood or an open sore
Sharing needles or syringes

Doctors don't know why, but the disease does go away in a modest number of carriers. For others, it becomes what's known equally chronic. That means you have an ongoing liver infection. Information technology tin pb to cirrhosis, or hardening of the organ. It scars over and stops working. Some people likewise get liver cancer.

If you're a carrier or are infected with hepatitis B, don't donate blood, plasma, trunk organs, tissue, or sperm. Tell anyone yous could infect -- whether it's a sex partner, your doctor, or your dentist -- that you have it.

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Source: https://www.webmd.com/hepatitis/digestive-diseases-hepatitis-b