Incurable STDs - Infections

Hepatitis B II

Jaundice appears in about half of all hepatitis cases

4. What are the symptoms?
Hepatitis B is often also called a “silent disease”, because many infected people never realize that they have it. If there are symptoms, they do not develop until a few weeks or months after the infection. Most of the infected, however, do not get sick at all or have only temporary flu-like symptoms like fatigue, a loss of appetite, pain in various joints and muscles, a light fever etc. Only in a minority of patients is this “acute hepatitis” more serious. Among other problems, they may develop “jaundice”, i.e. a yellow coloration of the eyes and the skin. Anyway, most patients recover after a few weeks and never have any hepatitis problems again.
In some cases “acute hepatitis” is followed by “chronic hepatitis”. Again, there may be no symptoms at all, or there may be a variety of problems, some of them very serious and debilitating. They may even be life-threatening like cirrhosis (shrinking and scarring) of the liver or liver cancer.

5. How is it diagnosed?
Since many people infected with HBV have only slight, temporary symptoms or no symptoms at all, the only certain way to diagnose the disease is a blood test.