Prevention and Treatment of Hepatitis.

It has been explained in the previous post - the causes of hepatitis, the types, the symptoms as well as the effects on the body. For more on these, click here!

PREVENTION OF HEPATITIS.
Viral hepatitis is caused by viruses that infect the liver. Each of these viruses cause a different type of disease, but there are some basic strategies that you can follow to protect yourself from most viral hepatitis infections. While we can't protect ourselves from everything, many types of hepatitis are preventable. Vaccines are very effective for preventing infection from hepatitis A and hepatitis B. Hepatitis B vaccine is a safe and effective way to protect yourself against hepatitis B infection. Since hepatitis B infection can lead to liver failure and liver cancer, protecting yourself from infection is important.

Hepatitis A and hepatitis E spread from person to person along the fecal-oral route. This means that feces contaminated with HAV or HEV from an infected person are somehow ingested by another person. This sounds gross and bizarre, but it happens in surprising ways.

The best way to prevent hepatitis C infection is to avoid contact with the blood of infected people. It's intuitive to think that a mosquito can spread blood-borne viruses, like hepatitis, when they bite someone infected and then move on to someone else. However, this doesn't happen because the biology of how they bite prevents it. Fortunately for everyone, viral hepatitis isn't spread from mosquitoes.

TREATMENT OF HEPATITIS.
There is no single medicine for treatment of hepatitis. Treatment is specific to its cause, which means that your physician will choose the best therapy for you based on your diagnosis. In the case of viral hepatitis, some viruses do respond to antiviral treatment. In certain acute cases, no drug is needed. However, getting the proper treatment is important because the faster your hepatitis is under control, the better your liver will be.

These are some of the most common forms of treatment for hepatitis.
* Rest: Some types of hepatitis, such as acute viral forms like hepatitis A and sometimes hepatitis B are self-limited diseases which means that your body's immune system will eventually be able to destroy the viruses that caused the disease. Medicine is rarely necessary to treat self-limited types of hepatitis, except for supportive therapies like controlling nausea or aches and pains. However, many people rest and give their bodies the necessary time to fight the illness. Self-limited diseases usually will not progress to chronic problems, so after a few weeks, you will feel better and be able to go back to normal activities.
* Antiviral Drugs: Doctors often combine different antiviral drugs to better combat the virus.
* Liver Transplantation: Sometimes hepatitis has developed into such a serious disease that a liver transplant is the only treatment left. This is a complex surgical procedure that involves replacing a failing liver with a donor liver. But because there are many risks involved, it is a treatment of last resort.

For more health tips, read;
Note on Our Health
7 Healthy Eating Tips