He treated jaundice at home: Doctors found hepatitis B and a failing liver

A slight yellowing of the eyes is something doctors commonly expect in hepatitis.A middle-aged man walked into my clinic convinced he had jaundice. His family had already started home remedies, cut down his diet to little more than sugarcane juice, and were waiting for the yellow colour in his eyes to disappear. But jaundice wasn’t his diagnosis — it was simply his body’s way of announcing that something was wrong. The real problem turned out to be hepatitis B, and by the time he arrived, his liver had already begun to fail. This is perhaps the biggest misconception surrounding jaundice. “It is not a disease in itself but a symptom — a visible signal that the liver or the body’s handling of bilirubin is under stress. Sometimes the cause is relatively harmless and resolves on its own. At ot