ImmunoSuppression - general question

Hello all,

What is immunosuppresion?
i have been reading this in forums, where people state that "if a person is immuno suppressive, then he should test at 6months, since antibodies are generated only by that time" Window period for an immunosuppressive individual is said to be 6 months.

i would like to know
1. what is immunosuppression?
2. How can i identify that i am one among that group or not?

i am a normal healthy person, with a normal medical history.
i do smoking and drink alcohol, but normal
i becomes ill on an average of only once in a year (normally healthy).

of course i am asking this to remove my fear of window period of 6 months (even that 1% chances).

thanks all...

[anonymous_user]

thanks teak for your response.

i thought about asking this, and to post my comments about my understanding, just because, during the period of anxiety you start believing everything which you wouldnt have had else...

hence from my knowledge,

Doctors recommend a 3-6 month window period for ELISA testing for those people who are immuno suppressed. the reason behind this is that such persons takes time to develop antibodies, and ELISA being a test which detects antibodies might go fail.

now who are the persons who are immuno suppressed.
the persons who has chemo, cancer or taking high dose drugs are immuno suppressed.
or in short the person who has low/bad immune or a weak immune system .
in laymans language, people getting ill/fever every now and then.

a physically healthy person has a good immune system and will develop antibodies at the max within 6 weeks from exposure. and hence a 6 week ELISA test on a healthy person is said to be conclusive...


All experienced forum users, please correct me if i am wrong. (teak and mike)
since this piece of info might help others to clear all their doubts.

thanks

[Teak]

If you were immune suppressed you wouldn't be here typing and asking. You would know and more than likely would be in a hospital bed.

[mike_no]

Okay, talking about who's an individual with compromised immune/what would delay seroconversion beyond 3 months, practically no condition in the body but an end stage cancer can delay the seroconversion and most importantly with the modern day testing inability to develop detectable antibodies or seroconvert after 3 months is just a thing of the past,

most of us here in the forum believe acidity, oral sore, fever, anxiety etc can suppress one's immune but that's incorrect

[anonymous_user]

thanks for the comment mike...
i think, this page will help all new users to clear some of the doubts