Hepatitis Facts

Hepatitis Facts

Hepatitis in American Indians is often, but not always, a side affect of alcohol/drug abuse. Too many of our people have been diagnosed with alcohol induced hepatitis.

SYMPTOMS

Many cases of hepatitis go undiagnosed because the disease is mistaken for the flu or because there are no symptoms at all. The most common symptoms of hepatitis are:

Loss of appetite.
Fatigue.
Mild fever.
Muscle or joint aches.
Nausea and vomiting.
Abdominal pain.

Less common symptoms include:

Dark urine.
Light-colored stools.
Jaundice or yellowing of skin and/or eyes
Generalized itching.
Altered mental state, stupor or coma.

CAUSES

Although their effects on the liver and the symptoms they produce can be similar, the various forms of hepatitis are contracted in different ways. In the case of viral hepatitis, the severity and duration of the disease are largely determined by the organism that caused it.

Hepatitis A, which is generally contracted orally through fecal contamination of food or water, is considered the least dangerous form of the disease because it does not lead to chronic inflammation of the liver. The hepatitis A virus commonly spreads through improper handling of food, contact with household members, sharing toys at day-care centers, and eating raw shellfish taken from polluted waters.

Persons who may be exposed to the hepatitis A virus repeatedly due to a high rate of hepatitis A disease, such as Alaskan Natives and Native Americans.
Persons engaging in high-risk sexual activity, such as homosexual and bisexual males.
Persons who use illegal injectable drugs.
Military personnel
Persons living in a community experiencing an outbreak of hepatitis A.
Persons working in facilities for the mentally retarded.
Employees of child day-care centers.
Persons who work with hepatitis A virus in the laboratory.
Persons who handle primate animals.
Persons with hemophilia.
Food handlers.
Persons with chronic liver disease.

Hepatitis B, the most widespread of the hepatitis viruses, infects an estimated 300,000 people every year in the United States alone. The virus can pass from mother to child at birth or soon afterward; the disease organism can also travel between adults and children to infect whole families. Hepatitis B can also spread through sexual contact, blood transfusions and needle-sharing by intravenous-drug users. In a third of all hepatitis B cases the source cannot be identified.

The majority of hepatitis B patients recover completely, but a small percentage of them can't shake the disease and may develop chronic hepatitis and possibly cirrhosis. People with chronic hepatitis become carriers, meaning they can transmit the disease to others even when their own symptoms have vanished. About 25 percent of chronic hepatitis B patients die prematurely from the disease as a result of cirrhosis or liver cancer.

Hepatitis C is usually spread through contact with blood or contaminated needles. Although hepatitis C may cause only mild symptoms or none at all, 20 percent to 30 percent of chronic carriers develop cirrhosis within 20 years. the disease can be passed on through blood transfusions, but a recently developed test has greatly reduced the number of such cases. In a third of all hepatitis C cases, the source of the disease is unknown. Hepatitis D occurs only in people infected with hepatitis B and tends to magnify the severity of that disease. It can be transmitted from mother to child and through sexual contact. Rarest among the five hepatitis viruses, hepatitis D is also the most dangerous because it involves two forms of the disease working at once.

Alcoholic, toxic and drug-related hepatitis can produce the same symptoms and liver inflammation that result from viral hepatitis. This form is caused not by invading microorganisms but by excessive and chronic consumption of alcohol ingestion of environmental toxins, or misuse of certain prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications such as acetaminophen.

IMPORTANT!

Because the liver plays a key role in processing drugs, alcohol and toxins in the bloodstream, a patient with hepatitis may find that some medications, alcoholic beverages and herbs that are normally tolerated can aggravate the condition. If you have hepatitis, do not attempt to treat the disease on your own; consult a physician or licensed practitioner. Avoid alcoholic beverages and ask your doctor if it is all right to use birth-control pills, antibiotics or over-the-counter medicines. Be sure to tell your physician or practitioner all the medications that you are taking, including even seemingly innocuous over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin or acetaminophen.

Source: American Liver Association