Hello everyone.
First of all, thank you for all your kindness. I've been reading all of your posts, particularly stef2011.
My mother and my 29 years old brother have hepatitis B. I'm younger, and I'm lucky I don't have it. Sadly, I believe that I suffer as much as they do with this situation and I'm having some problems dealing with all of this. Being a medicine student doens't help, I can't stop thinking about it. I'm depressed and I don't know what to do, and this forum really helps me.
My brother has been having some problems. He got the disease from my mother. I was looking at some older analysis, and I found out that, in his childhood years, his ALT and AST were sometimes kind of high (60s), even with the virus undetectable. He's HbeAg negative.
In 2011, due to an increase in ALT/AST and in HBV DNA, he started to take tenofovir. After that, the enzymes went down (but always in the upper limit) and so did the DNA. HbsAg remained always positive (but we don't have the numbers).
In 2014, he was still with tenofovir, and the enzymes started to increase again. He was doing some bodybuilding, working out everyday, and having some protein shakes (not more than that). The virus remained undetectable, but the enzymes were always in the 100s level. He did all the tests, celiac disease and all,and everything came negative. We noted that, after two weeks by the beach, the enzymes went to almost normal levels (vitamin D?).
In 2015, the doctor decided to switch to entecavir, which was a dumb thing to do in my opinion. She never cared to ask for a fibroscan, she said "it is only important for those with hepatitis C". She doesn't care.
The medication change made no impact. The analysis remained the same. In October, with the enzymes being 100 and 50, the virus made an appearance: HBV dna: 140 (still low, but...)
Now we changed to another doctor. I talked to my hepatology teacher, I told him that my brother needs a fibroscan and maybe a biopsy, he agreed and he's going to be his doctor. He's starting the consultations next week.
I think vitamin D may play a important role in this situation. My brother has OCD. He is not medicated; he was once, but he says that it doens't like the feeling it gives him. He's never out of house, unless he's going to the gym (but he's not working out as much now, and he gave up on the protein shakes in 2014...). The only time he has some sun rays on his skin is like 14 days in the summer, and I noted that the enzymes are always higher in February (winter) and lower in August/September. He started taking 3000IU vitamind d3 a day last week, but we are going to ask the new doctor to test his values.
He also never ate any fruit at all and his sleeping schedule is a mess. He sleeps from 8am to 3pm, and like once in two weeks he doesnt sleep for a night because he has classes in the morning or something. It's all because of OCD, he's not a very easy guy as you can see. Now I convinced him to have orange juice, apples, carrots, nuts, everyday. He only ate bread, rice, pasta and chicken chest. He now has a more varied diet, but I think he is tired right now. He has lots of acne, herpes in his lips in this moment and he looks overall weak. I'm scared. He was never fat (he gained some weight before the enzymes started in 2014, but more like muscle weight) but he has cholestrol polyps in his gallbladder. think this may be some type of autoimmune disease, although the markers were all negative. Was/is his weak diet and lifestyle making all of this?
I'm having a hard time with all of this. Sorry for bothering you, and I wish the best to all of you.