Hoping somebody might know a bit about this disease.
My girlfriend informed me today that she was just tested positive for Hepatitis B. Naturally, I’m concerned that I may have contracted it from her, since we don’t know exactly when she became infected.
We have not yet had sexual relations with each other, and neither of us uses intravenous drugs. However, we have kissed quite a bit. Would kissing count as “contact with … bodily fluids”?
As I’m a professional cook, I’m glad to see that hepatitis B is not spread through food!
I’m going to make an appointment with a doctor tomorrow, but in the meantime I’d like more info, if only to set my mind at ease a bit.
From memory, the transmission rates through saliva is very low. You increase your chances if you both have bleeding gums and/or mouth ulcers.
Better get your vacination done pronto.
Oh, and it’s not exactly doom and gloom for your gf. There has been a fairly good success rate using Interferon to kick start the body’s immune system.
I’m 37. Never been vaccinated against HBV, as far as I know. My GF just turned 20. She was born in 1983, a year after HBV vaccination became standard, but obviously she must not have gotten her shot. That’s her parents’ fault, of course - and with her stories about the kind of “discipline” she endured as a child, her parents don’t appear to have been especially concerned about her well-being. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she missed a lot of other shots, too.
I’m 17, and never immunized for Hepatitus B. My parents felt that they wern’t safe. I’ve gotten all my other shots, though. I know other people my age that didn’t get the Hepatitus B shots for the same reasons I didn’t.