Updated: 29-03-2025
Hepatitis damages liver functions. Cells in the liver become dysfunctional and inflamed due to the onset of hepatitis.
Patients need to take medications and apply therapies for recovery at an early stage.
Often, when it is benign, there are no visible or palpable symptoms to expose.
Let us know more about hepatitis types, causes, symptoms, prevention, and treatment.
Gradually, patients learn about the changes in their bodies. They must not take local drugs without a prescription if necessary.
Hepatitis Types Causes Symptoms Prevention and Treatment
What Is Hepatitis?
As mentioned earlier, it causes liver enlargement with chronic cellular inflammation in the liver.
Here are some of the facts that will make conceptions about hepatitis clearer:
- It has five main types, and viruses cause all of them.
- Around 250 million people are affected globally by hepatitis C, and more than 300 million people are estimated to be carriers of hepatitis B.
- The cause of hepatitis A is the consumption of contaminated water or food.
- Hepatitis B is a type of sexually transmitted disease.
- Hepatitis C spreads through direct contact with a person who is affected by this disease.
- Only a patient with hepatitis B can develop the symptoms of hepatitis D.
- The cause of hepatitis E (HEV) is the intake of contaminated water.
- It shows all the similar symptoms related to other types of hepatitis in the group but is not identified as a viral infection known as hepatitis X.
- A specific virus (HGV) is known to cause hepatitis G.
- The initial symptoms of both flu and hepatitis are similar.
Different Types of Hepatitis
It has different subtypes like A, B, C, D, and E. This dangerous virus weakens the liver so that it cannot function properly.
The difference in the structure and characteristics of the hepatitis virus is understandable.
B-type hepatitis enhances the scope of severe infection and forces patients to go through complicated diagnostic and treatment procedures.
In a report prepared by the CDC, or the Centers for Disease Control in America, it has been calculated that approximately 350 million people worldwide have experienced the occurrence of hepatitis.
Therefore, it is a menace that threatens survival.
How Are Hepatitis A/B/C/D/E Affected?
There are specific causes of hepatitis. Medical researchers and doctors give their own opinions about the cause of hepatitis A/B/C/D/E.
Liver expansion can take place due to exposure to toxic elements, liquor, and spurious drugs.
The liver loses its ability to perform regularly owing to metabolic disorders, fungal infections, bacterial attacks, and buildups of parasites in the liver.
What are the symptoms of hepatitis?
Common signs and symptoms of hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E are similar. In many cases, its symptoms are not properly revealed.
However, some of the common symptoms that can help in identifying the disease include:
- Vomiting
- Malaise
- Muscle pain
- Nausea
- Unusual enlargement of the liver
- Faster loss of interest in eating food
- Dehydration
- Uneasiness
Patients have low stamina and energy to move comfortably. Working efficiency goes down gradually.
Further identifiable symptoms are sudden enlargement of the veins in the interior walls of the esophagus, the accumulation of fluid in the abdomen, and inflammation of the lower limbs.
Which subtype of hepatitis is dangerous?
Chronic hepatitis B is not curable, and it does not give patients a chance to have advanced treatment to get relief permanently.
They should undergo blood screening and medical tests for diagnosis.
Pre-vaccination helps people to have life security.
How Can Hepatitis Be Prevented?
- There are vaccines for preventing Hepatitis A and B. However, the shot administration is not recommended to protect children from Hepatitis A.
- Newly born babies who are below one year after birth should not be vaccinated for the prevention of the hepatitis A virus.
- On the other hand, a vaccine for hepatitis B was introduced back in 1986. Children are eligible to have such an anti-hepatitis B vaccine to prevent the cause of hepatitis.
- The achievement rate of vaccination for children in the case of resisting hepatitis is almost 99%.
- Within a day of the child’s delivery on the bed, the anti-hepatitis B vaccine is given to stop the transmission of the disease from the mother to the baby.
- However, people crossing 40 have a low ability to reinforce their immune system to respond after taking the anti-Hepatitis B type vaccine.
- WHO has declared that children in both developed and developing countries should be administered anti-hepatitis B as early as possible to prevent the quick transfer of hepatitis B germs from the blood of the mother to the babies.
Preventing Drug-Induced Hepatitis
It is easier to avoid things that you do not need to do compulsorily.
But for people who work in industries that prepare toxic drugs and chemicals, such as pesticides, fertilizers, and insecticides, or those who are in the cement industry and are exposed to asbestos and other similar components, it is difficult to avoid such substances.
However, even then, you can take certain precautions to protect yourself:
- Always wear your protective gear and hand gloves when you are operating with the toxic substances or are being exposed to them.
- Make sure that the content or the spray is never pointed at you to avoid direct fumes of toxicity.
Does hepatitis affect pregnant women?
- Women who conceive can be affected by hepatitis B, and their babies will have the side effects of this viral infection.
- It is infectious, and it is transferable to other people.
- The pregnant mother needs to test their blood to learn about the presence of hepatitis B in her body.
- A pregnant woman should not engage in sexual intercourse with a partner who has hepatitis B.
- This chronic liver infection is caused by the usage of infected needles, blood transmission, and sexual intercourse.
- Pregnant women should take vaccines to improve their resistance to prevent Hepatitis B, or else their babies will have higher risks of being infected by this disease.
- Treatment should be started quickly to safeguard newborn babies.
What Type of Treatment Is There for Hepatitis?
Treatment for hepatitis-affected people depends on the types and severity of the infection in the liver.
Usually, hepatitis A is not easy to treat. Patients with hepatitis A are allowed to have a long bed rest. They should not consume alcohol and steroids to increase the risks.
As patients are seen vomiting several times within 24 hours, they should avoid fatty and spicy foods as they are hard to digest.
Instead, they must take fat-free food to get back their stamina. Dehydration and diarrhea cause more body weakness.
Hepatitis B
In the case of hepatitis B, patients must be monitored by doctors.
In the absence of specific treatment to treat patients, doctors like to prescribe anti-viral medicines to control this disease.
However, experts are not hopeful about the resultant effect of the application of such expensive anti-viral medications to eliminate the virus from it.
For this reason, early preventive care and possible medical trials are helpful to people to avoid the disease.
Children should be administered anti-hepatitis shots to delay the progression of the Hepatitis B-type germs that destroy the metabolism and digestive systems.
Hepatitis C
Patients are advised to have antiviral drugs for steady improvement.
Some user-friendly therapeutic procedures in combination with the application of anti-viral medications are beneficial to patients to avoid discomfort.
After medical tests and blood screening, doctors recommend liver replacement or a critical surgical operation to repair the liver if the patients have cirrhosis.
Hepatitis D
It is treatable. People recover from doldrums and stress after having alpha-interferon medication, which works faster to wipe out symptoms of hepatitis D.
This medication should be taken in the right dose. However, some scientists claim that the chance of recovery from hepatitis D occurs even after the administration of this vital medication to help patients recover.
Hepatitis E
It is not managed through a particular therapy or treatment. You must abide by some general instructions to lessen pain and physical disorder to some extent.
For instance, the intake of plenty of nutritious fluid/water and multivitamin supplements will energize you. In addition, do not go outside for hard work.
Stay at home and plan how to spend time sleeping and reading books to have mental relaxation.
Does it spread from one to another?
All types of hepatitis are transmitted through blood, used tools/needles, and body sharing.
If someone has hepatitis B, he must not be a donor to donate blood.
He should be prohibited from giving blood platelets to other patients during an emergency.
Simultaneously, through physical attachment or sexual intercourse, the virus of hepatitis is transferred to one’s body.
Even needles used to collect the blood of the infected patient should not be given to others for further usage.
It can minimize your lifespan. Therefore, you will have to find the best preventive method to strengthen your physical resistance/immune system for retaliation.
Chronic hepatitis can be life-threatening and cause permanent physical deformity.
Advanced medical tests, timely care, and a lot of safeguards in advance, inclusive of vaccination, are positive steps to lower the risks of the attack of hepatitis.
