Hepatitis – What you need to Know
What is Hepatitis?
What comes to your mind when you hear #Hepatitis?
Some people think of yellow eyes, others think of yellow urine while still some others think of a damaged #liver.
While these could be features, there is much more to it than this.
Hepatitis refers to an inflammation of the liver.
What does this inflammation mean? When something is inflamed it means something e.g. an infection or injury has caused a reaction, this reaction may result in pain, swelling or redness to the affected area.
What causes Hepatitis?
Do you know what causes the liver to be inflamed?
There are many things that could cause this like drugs, viruses, bacteria, fungi etc.
They can gain access to the liver through
- The blood e.g. sharing needles.
- Ingesting raw or contaminated food and water these may have been in contact with infected faeces.
- Since the liver is one of the first places a drug is taken to as it is being processed by the body, it is easily damaged by poisons.
What are you doing to protect your liver?
Types of Hepatitis
Hepatitis is actually just an umbrella term for inflammation of the liver. There are different types which include Hepatitis A, B, C, D, E, Alcoholic and Auto immune.
Generally Hep A, B, C, D and E are all caused by viruses. Hep A is the least dangerous. You can get it through contaminated food..
You can get Hep B through sex or delivery, that’s why it is very worrisome.
What do you think alcoholic and autoimmune hepatitis mean?
Prolonged and excessive intake of alcohol can lead to inflammation of the liver. This is known as Alcoholic hepatitis, here inflammation of the liver is caused by excessive consumption of alcohol.
What does autoimmune mean? This is when the body takes its own self as the enemy and attacks itself, in this case the liver.
For the purpose of this series I will focus on Hepatitis B. What do you know about this infection? Why is it considered to be a potentially deadly infection?
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Stay Healthy!