Scared to DEATH

OK - I am an emergency responder and I went in for my annual physical on the 16th - it was a holiday and this way I did not have to take any time off - my Dr decided to add a few extra tests to my physical and I was not consulted - he and I have always gotten along great and I think he believes he has the OK to do this - but what a shock when my results came back and my Hep A - negative, Hep B - Negative, Hep C - Positive 8.4 EIA - I almost blacked out when he told me - "now lets NOT panic here guy - we will be sending you to a gastroenterologist and we will be doing some more blood tests to check how sick you are etc - and then he left the room, the nurse came in to draw the blood for the other tests and she said - Lets just wait and see what these tests tell us - we get false positives ALL THE TIME - well my obsessive compulsive went into over drive and I was reading everything I could get my hands on - bottom line my results are back - RNA qual and quant - both NEGATIVE,  reflex RIBA (not sure what that means except it has to do with measuring antibodies - NEGATIVE - now I am back at the doctors office and he says - well - not really sure what this means guy - but just to be on the safe side maybe you need to see the gastroenterologist - everything I have seen says this was a false positive - is my doctor going overboard here>>>>??????????//

[hrsepwrguy]

Well I will say this you do not have hep c and with a neg RIBA test that your EIA was indeed a false positive. As far as why your doc would want you to see a gastro, I have no idea but he/she knows your medical history so maybe there is some other concerns.

[fireman452]

nope - he is only focused on the EIA positive my ALT is 16 and the other one I can not rememeber right now like AST is 14  so no other issues - he is just concerned about the EIA being above 1.0

[flcyclist]

The enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (EIA) tests for the antibody to hepatitis C (anti-HCV). False-positive results may occur at a rate of 10-20% and are usually seen in the presence of autoimmune disease, hypergammaglobulinemia and low-risk blood donors.  Since the recent RNA Qualitative and Quantitative, and the RIBA were all negative, It sure does sound like a false negative EIA to me.  To be sure, I'd follow up with the GI doc and put this behind me.  Otherwise, you will be fretting forever.  Good luck.

http://www.hcvadvocate.org/hcsp/articles/Bernstein-1.html

[hrsepwrguy]

Your alt and ast are at the low end of normal range, no problems there. Follow this link and it will show you the proper test procedure guidelines for hep c testing. Still no idea why your doc would want you to see a gastro.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/1999/0101/p79.html

[AKHepper]

calm down