Help with clarifying

General Discussion
1

Respected,
I need your help, so I can, hopefully, feel at peace since I have been very upset lately not being able to get the answer I have been looking for, so I hope that you could help me. I come from a small city and we do not have hepatitis specialists who could help me with my questions.
My hepatitis b results came out as follows:
HbsAg negative
anti Hbc - 3.07 COI which means positive since normal range is 0 - 0.35 COI
anti Hbs > 1000.00
I am suspected to be infected with virus some time in the past, cleared out infection and gained natural immunity.
My questions are:

  1. Is my anti HBc level too high and what does it mean ?
  2. Is my anti Hbs level high enough to protect me in the future ? And what is the lowest anti Hbs that can protect you ? The measure is in mlU/mL
  3. Should I take a booster dose vaccine, would it help for additional protection?
  4. Since I live with hep b positive partner, my main concern is are we able to practice intimacy without protection ( until now we were using condoms, but we would like to proceed to the next level and plan to expand the family in the future). I am a female, he is a male. Is my anti HBs level high enough to protect me in case of having intercourse with my hep b positive partnet without protection ?
    My partner is hepatitis b positive, marked as an inactive carrier, and his viral load is <500, his highest load was around 1200, now it is less than 500
    Thank you for your time
2

I would very much appreciate your respective opinions.
Thank you for your time
@availlant
@john.tavis
@ThomasTu

3

Hi @Layla_mac,

Your test results say you were infected with HBV sometime in the past and successfully cleared the infection. >90% of people infected as adults clear the virus, so this is not unusual.

To answer your questions:

  1. It really doesn’t matter what your anti-HBc antibody levels are. Those antibodies help with diagnosis but they don’t work against the virus because their target protein, HBc, is not exposed on the surface of the HBV virus particle.
  2. You have a nice high anti-HBsAg level. The benchmark for protection if I remember correctly is 10 mIU (Andrew and Thomas: Please correct me if my memory is wrong), so a titer of >1000 mIU is quite good.
  3. The booster vaccine is unlikely to help given you have a robust antibody level, but there is no reason to think it would hurt anything either. Most likely it would have little to no effect.
  4. This requires someone with more clinical expertise than I have (I’m a scientist, not a physician). Your partner has a low HBV level, which of course is really helpful. Many happy families have one partner who is HBV+, so it can be managed. Your doctor should be able to help, and there are others on this Community who have experience managing this issue who can speak from personal experience.

I wish you the very best.

John.

2 Likes
4

I completely agree with all the points John has made.

TT

1 Like
5

@ThomasTu and @john.tavis Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out with my questions. I feel more at peace.
I would like to hear more answers on my question number 4, regarding the unprotected intercourse with my partner, hopefully specialists in this field will get back at me and clarify it for me.

1 Like
6

Hi @Layla,

At >1000mIU/mL, your antibody level would be considered a high enough for protection, even in cases of unprotected sex. More resources and discussion can be found here: If Hepatitis B Is Sexually Transmitted, How Come My Partner Isn’t Infected? - Hepatitis B Foundation; Having children and Hepatitis B - #12 by john.tavis

Hope these help,
Thomas