Author Topic: Mother With Hep C (Read 12771 times)

Verity · « **on:** November 28, 2017, 04:05:22 pm »

Hello,

Recently my mother was diagnosed with hepatitis C. She thinks she may have had it for around 40 years as this is the only time she injected drugs. She has no symptoms and only found out through a routine blood test. I am 37 so obviously concerned I may have been infected so I have a blood test booked for this week.

I had my gallbladder removed 9 years ago and had all sorts of blood tests as I had mild jaundice and other symptoms, but all went away when they finally found and removed the gallstones. As my symptoms were liver related would Hepatitis be one of the things they tested for? Surely it would have come up then?

Also I have children aged 9 and 10, should I be having them tested too, or wait to see what my result is?

I suppose my question is how worried I should be. I'm very anxious and hate waiting for test results

gnatcatcher · « **Reply #1 on:** November 28, 2017, 08:14:39 pm »

Verity, since you had jaundice 9 years ago, it's likely that they would have tested for hepatitis.

Sorry your mother is infected. It's quite common for someone with HCV to have no symptoms (even for many decades). Fortunately, today's medicines have very high cure rates and are very easy for most people to tolerate.

Usually at first doctors just test to see if your immune system made antibodies to HCV (meaning it encountered HCV at some point). If that result is nonreactive, then your body never dealt with HCV. If that result is reactive, doctors will order another, more expensive test to see if you have active virus now (some people are able to clear the virus without medicine and therefore would be reactive but have an undetected viral load).

It makes sense to wait for your results before finding out whether your children should be tested. Because HCV develops very slowly, getting them tested is not an emergency. (If it were, your mother would have had symptoms a long time ago.)

Your anxiety is perfectly normal. We've all been there.

Gnatty

Lynn K · « **Reply #2 on:** November 29, 2017, 01:14:27 am »

Hi and welcome

Gnatty has given some great advice. Just wanted to add that vertical transmission (mother to child) during birth is relatively rare at about 5% so the odds that you are not infected is about 95%.

Wishing you good news

Verity · « **Reply #3 on:** November 30, 2017, 12:41:43 pm »

Thank you for your replies

I went for my blood test today and while I was there registered for online access to my records etc. I've just been trawling back through past test results and found this from 2009:

'Test result HEP C AB SCREEN TEST (EIA) Report, Unknown, No Further Action'.

Does this mean unless I have been infected somehow since then I am clear?

gnatcatcher · « **Reply #4 on:** November 30, 2017, 04:16:14 pm »

That's the right test (AB means antibody), and "No Further Action" sounds good! My lab uses the term "Nonreactive," but "Unknown" might be a synonym used by your lab. So, yes, I think it means you are clear unless you somehow got infected since then.

Lynn K · « **Reply #5 on:** November 30, 2017, 05:56:07 pm »

Yes that test was the hep C antibody test. I agree it does appear that at that time you did not have antibodies to hep c so were not infected at that time. Looks like good news to me.

andrew j · « **Reply #6 on:** November 30, 2017, 09:04:18 pm »

Looking at 'Management of Needlestick Injury' in the 'Textbook of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery' (gasp!) it appears that 'Unknown' refers to the source, or cause ... the reason for conducting the test.

Verity · « **Reply #7 on:** December 01, 2017, 06:02:33 am »

Ok so now I am waiting for a call from the doctor, some of results came back and two were abnormal, ALP is 161 and ALT is 42. I have always had slightly raised results since I had my gallbladder removed and my previous GP was never particularly concerned. The receptionist said the doctor will ring me within a week so it can't be urgent can it?

gnatcatcher · « **Reply #8 on:** December 01, 2017, 08:34:32 am »

Yes, I think you can safely conclude it can't be urgent -- doctors risk malpractice suits if they don't quickly follow up on something urgent

Have a nice weekend.

Verity · « **Reply #9 on:** December 02, 2017, 11:43:57 am »

Thank you! Do you think my results be considered very high? I realise you're not medical professionals (unless you are of course haha!), but I couldn't really find out much on Google. I'm too impatient, I know

Mugwump · « **Reply #10 on:** December 02, 2017, 03:13:43 pm »

It would be rather backward today if a lab and associated doctors tried to obfuscate the language so that patients could not understand the results. The tests for antibodies are much more accurate than they were even only 9 years ago when in most places it was still standard practice to repeat an antibody test before doing the more expensive HCV quantitative test.

No further action most likely means in this case, do not retest for antibodies because it was a strong no antibodies found reaction. If there had been a weak reaction then the test would have been repeated in a few weeks and if then found weakly reactive an HCV rna test would have been recommended. When I was first tested for HCV antibodies in 1993 the antibody test was repeated before I was tested and a confirmed infection was found by what was then extremely expensive viral load tests. In Canada the test costs for viral load were over $10,000 per test so they made darn sure that the antibody test was not a false positive first.

Things have come a long way and the testing technology has improved drastically as has the treatment.
The most important thing is you are being tested. Many people are still too afraid to be tested and it is this fear that is the more concerning, certainly not the tests or for that matter the results either way things turn out.

Lynn K · « **Reply #11 on:** December 02, 2017, 05:59:50 pm »

Depending on the reference range for your lab your results are only slightly elevated

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/liver-function-tests/basics/results/prc-20012602

Per the Mayo Clinic link normal ranges are:

ALT. 7 to 55 units per liter (U/L)
AST. 8 to 48 U/L
ALP. 45 to 115 U/L

When I had hep c my ALP or alkaline phosphatase was always in normal range.
In general to be considered significant elevations your results would need to be at least 5 times above normal range. So while you should try to find out what is going on your result for ALP is only slightly elevated and your ALT is normal range.

Causes of elevated ALP

https://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/alp/tab/test/

Good luck

Verity · « **Reply #12 on:** December 04, 2017, 07:31:41 am »

My hepatitis antibody result was 'not detected'

Am I right in thinking there is no need to get my children tested? I can't think of any instances where they could have had blood to blood contact with my mum.

gnatcatcher · « **Reply #13 on:** December 04, 2017, 07:37:49 am »

Verity, yes, you are right. I hope your mother's treatment is going well.

Mugwump · « **Reply #14 on:** December 04, 2017, 12:23:33 pm »

All the best helping your mom to overcome this curse. And best wishes to you and your close ones.

Eric

Lynn K · « **Reply #15 on:** December 04, 2017, 05:39:20 pm »

Household transmission is extreamly rare. Congrats on being free of hep c best of luck to your mom with her treatment.

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