Dear @Esther,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your experiences. You’re definitely not alone in this anxiety and having your world turned upside down by a hep B diagnosis. As mentioned in other parts of this forum, a diagnosis of hepatitis B is by no means a death sentence; many of us (myself included) live long and healthy lives with this condition.
Regarding your antiviral treatment for potential acute infection, this is not necessarily a bad thing. As per the EASL clinical guidelines for HBV (https://easl.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HepB-English-report.pdf):
Early NA treatment does not increase the risk of chronicity181,186; in fact, observational data from a multicentre cohort even indicated reduced rates of chronicity, if NA treatment was initiated within 8 weeks of acute hepatitis B presentation in genotype A infected individuals.
Although randomised controlled trials are lacking, several cohort studies indicate that the early antiviral therapy with highly potent NAs can prevent progression to acute liver failure and subsequently liver transplantation or
mortality.107,181 This effect, however, is not seen if antiviral therapy is initiated late in the course of severe acute hepatitis B in patients with already manifested acute liver failure and advanced hepatic encephalopathy.
The reason why antiviral treatment is not regularly given in acute infection is that most adults exposed to hepatitis B will clear it.
More than 95% of adults with acute HBV hepatitis do not require specific treatment, because they will fully recover spontaneously (Evidence level II-2, grade of recommendation 1).
Is there a specific worry that you have about treatment?
Hope this helps,
Thomas