This is what I'm hoping for. With the ALT taking a huge drop like this (ok not HUGE but a good one), I have to wonder what else may happen. For all I know, I have HBsAG loss but still may have detectable DNA. I'll find out next month after my next test.
I can assure you, I feel a LOT better than I did even a few months ago. The only thing I've noticed is some extra tiredness, but it's not anything that puts me down and out.
Ah I see in the uk through hbv patients are entitled to it every 6months.
Yeah late nights wont help lol
I think tiredness might be a sign your body is still fighting it.
In terms of hbsag loss.
When will they check your hbsag quantative next?
I'd imagine when he switches to TAF it will go undetectable
I forgot to mention, I also upped my Vitamin D levels to 20,000iu daily (though there is a day here and there I might skip due to the sheer fact that I forget to take it). I can assure you, doing this has made me feel a LOT better as well.
Thanks! I'm happy for the ALT loss. Because it was always high and nothing was every found on the physical tests, my doctor called it fatty liver. Makes sense, and looks to me it's normalizing. Now if the rest clears, I'll be happy. That is my goal.
Good results!
Keep my fingers crossed for you my friend.
Wanted to share the latest labs with comments:
HBV DNA IU/mL: < 29 IU/mL HBV DNA Detected
Total Bili: 0.3mg/dL
Dir Bili : < 0.1 mg/dL
Ind Bili :< 0.3 mg/dL
AST (SGOT) - 29 (down 4 points)
ALT (SGPT) - 13 (down 13 points and now NORMAL)
Creatine - 1.15 mg/dL
Uric Acid - 7.5 mg/dL
Calcium - 9.8 mg/dL
Phosphorus - 4.9 mg/dL
pH - 5.5
CK - 247 U/L (huge jump.. wonder why?)
Parathyroid Hormone - 32 pg/mL (Back down again! 17pts less)
HBsAg: None done this lab, next lab it will be
Generally happy about the huge decrease in ALT. It's been always fluctuating at just above high cut off and now it's normal. Whatever I'm doing, seems to be working. Mainly dietary changes tbh. Concerned about CK levels but this is not first time it's high so let's see what next test reveals. They want me to go for DEXA, Ultrasound and MRI before next one. I swear, I was there less than 6 months ago. I suspect they are speeding up the trial for some reason. In February, I officially start TAF only.
This format is weird. The new format, the original post shows up on the top of the page, on page 1. The old format, this post is never bumped!
It is still better to have a more sensitive dna test, the escape from liver reabsoption happens to some percentage of virions, thus lower is still better.
There is no direct test to measure in liver production of smaller amounts of virions.
The Quant hbsag test measures the degree of surface antigen restricted gene expression and particle production. Since it can occur also from integrated non virion producing viral dna fragments, it is not as good a test for the remaining cccDNA as we originally hoped.it looks more and more that a fairly high amount of hbsag is not produced from cccDNA, very different from patient to patient, likely depending on the time of virus evolution in each case and the intensity of regeneration and consecutive integration of hbv dna fragments.
Even at this extreme sensitivity it only refers to Dane particles in the v peripheral blood. It is not any indication of the likelihood of hbsag loss or seroconversion.
Also, the low dna count in the peripheral blood is somewhat misleading, since it does not accurately reflect the virion production in the liver, since a fairly large amount of virions are trapped and extracted in the liver right after synthesis and release, since the liver has a high affinity to absorb virions. Only when this absorption capacity gets closer to saturation, more virions escape into the general circulation.
This is different for hbsag seroconverted patients with a high antibody. In this case the antibody blocks the virions outside from contact and absorption to hepatocytes and almost all de novo virions enter the general circulation as immuncomplexed Dane particles. These still register in the hbv pcr test, since they contain hbv dna.
With all these quant hbv pcr tests, there is a limit of the quantifiable range. Like eg less than 29 iu. But the fundamental sensitivity of the test is well below the Quant range, could be for example 10 iu. That is the qualitative limit. Below that no signal is detected above background and it will then say dna not detected.
Different tests have different qualitative detection limits of course, but they tend not to disclose these. All you know is that you are between the Quant and Qual limit with your results.
if one uses an extremely sensitive test like the ngi hbv ultraqual, the detection sensitivity is 0.3 iu. With this test most patients und with lesser tests will still have a pos signal.
I had that too, even though I was only on Virwad for 6 months (but DNA was low when started which confused me). My doctor said to see UND she has found it's taking longer with how sensitive the testing is getting. Also, with most trials you will notice they actually consider <29 or <20 UND, . I know it's frustrating and hopefully others will have better information. At least you are consistant and it's not going up. :)
Been a while since I posted any results but here it is:
HBV DNA IU/mL: < 29 IU/mL HBV DNA Detected
Total Bili: 0.4mg/dL
Dir Bili : 0.1 mg/dL
Ind Bili : 0.3 mg/dL
AST (SGOT) - 33
ALT (SGPT) - 51 (down 8 points)
Creatine - 1.33 mg/dL (A little high)
Uric Acid - 6.7 mg/dL
Calcium - 9.5 mg/dL
Phosphorus - 3.7 mg/dL
pH - 5.5
CK - 164 U/L
Parathyroid Hormone - 49.3 pg/mL (There's that jump back down again!)
HBsAg: Positive
Just some comments. I drank some water before the test because I had a urine sample that needed to be taken and I already went to the bathroom an hour before my tests (I had to go bad!)
My question: Why is HBV DNA not undetectable yet? I'm getting close to 2 years on this and the test does not show HBV DNA Undetectable. Will it EVER show this (even if my HBsAg is positive?)
fibroscore is not always accurate. fibroscan and biopsy are gold standards.
Goodluck to you man, my only concern is your fibrosis you said you are f0 before you start treatment and now you are f2/f3 . I thought you are not suppose to progress while on treatment . Can please raise it with your doctor why the progression from f0 to f2/f3
That is so great! Did your doctor ever say anything about the <29 iu/ml but detected? I've only been on Viread since April but mine has been <20 iu/ml detected ever since after month one. I test again next month (6 month mark) but don't know if I should ever get to read undetected?
Sharing more info from my trial results. I went back for a follow-up to my doctor today, because he was away when they drew my blood last week. To my surprise, they had the results all ready so I wanted to share it:
HBV DNA IU/mL: < 29 IU/mL HBV DNA Detected
Total Bili: 0.2mg/dL
Dir Bili : <0.1 mg/dL
Ind Bili : <0.2 mg/dL
AST (SGOT) - 33 (down one point)
ALT (SGPT) - 59 (up 5 points)
Creatine - 1.21 mg/dL
Uric Acid - 7.0 mg/dL
Calcium - 9.5 mg/dL
Phosphorus - 3.7 mg/dL
pH - 5.5
CK - 136 U/L (Down a lot and normalized)
Parathyroid Hormone - 45.7 pg/mL (There's that jump back down again!)
Ostase: 18.52 ug/L
Osteocal: 39.33 ng/mL (This is for bone density and is 1 point too high. It used to be higher than this though, so clearly it's gotten better)
Overall, I'm about as happy as I can be but know I have a LONG way to go with this. I did talk to my doctor about the upcoming ARC-520 conference and he was not aware of it and thanked me for the heads up. After doing some research, they are recruiting HBeAg - Positive patients for it. So I would not qualify.
A few things.. my blood pressure was through the rough when I went to draw blood. Something like 173 over 90 which is way too high for me as it's normally a set 120/80 give or take a few points. Came back a few days later to check up just in case, it was normalized. I've been dealing with plenty of stressful situations which did not help the next day. Also, I am happy to report that my cholesterol is also NORMAL. Something you don't see in today's society often in the USA because of our bad eating habits. No complaints there!
Everything else checked out and my doctor was happy to see no toxicity with the medications or even any reported events by me as a side effect. He was also happy to see me with such a positive attitude!
Anyway, 2 more months and I'm back for another round!
That's interesting, I just hope they make a similar drug to peg interferon with out the side effects.
I don't know the exact details. That is all he told me. Sorry
Over 5 years of practice he treated only 10 people with interferon ?! Is it because is states nucs are more preferred/lobbed ? What side effects he saw ?
Fresh, I don't know. As per my doctor, he recommends I do not try it. Over the course of the past 5 years or so, he's done it on 10 patients. 3 were Genotype D, 2 were Genotype C and 5 were Genotype A. Of the 10 patients, 3 of them were cured and they were all Genotype A. He saw some of the patients report a lot of bad side effects so he would not want to see me do the same thing, especially if it's not a guaranteed cure for me.
Hi luckyman i hope your doing good, just wondered if after your clinical trial would peg interferon help you to get it undetected also now that it's 29 IU/mL HBV ?