How To Live With Chronic Liver Disease

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Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

Chronic liver disease is an illness that persists over a long period of time, as compared with the course of an acute disease. Over this period there is a deterioration that may result in the need for an organ transplant. These illnesses can include a number of abnormal liver conditions like alcoholic liver disease, liver fibrosis and hepatitis. However, liver disease does not mean death. Patients can live full lives while coping with the illness. In this article, we’ll look at the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of liver illnesses.

One of the dangers of chronic liver disease is that there are few symptoms and they don’t show up until the disease is in an advanced stage. Hepatitis can linger in the body and produce a chronic infection that lasts for years. This can eventually lead to liver cirrhosis and, in some cases, liver cancer. Signs and symptoms of cirrhosis include abdominal pain, general fatigue, intestinal bleeding, itching, jaundice, loss of interest in sex, nausea and vomiting, small red, spider-like blood vessels under the skin or easy bruising, swelling in the abdomen and legs caused by fluid accumulation, weakness and weight loss.

Many people associate alcohol abuse with liver disease, since the liver processes alcohol so it can be eliminated from your body. If you consume more alcohol than the liver can process, then the resulting imbalance can injure the liver by interfering with its normal breakdown of protein, fats and carbohydrates. There are three kinds of liver diseases related to alcohol consumption: fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhosis, which is the most serious type of alcohol-induced liver disease. Cirrhosis refers to the replacement of normal liver tissue with scar tissue. Between 10 and 20 percent of heavy drinkers develop cirrhosis, usually after 10 or more years of drinking.

The symptoms of alcoholic liver disease are serious and include fluid in the abdomen, bleeding from veins in the esophagus, an enlarged spleen, high blood pressure in the liver, changes in mental function, coma, kidney failure and liver cancer. The first step in treatment is to stop drinking. A doctor may suggest changes in diet and certain vitamin supplements to help the liver recover from the alcohol-related damage. Medications may be needed to manage the complications caused by the liver damage. In advanced cases of cirrhosis, the only treatment option may be a liver transplant. However, active alcoholics usually do not qualify as organ recipients.

It’s important to remember that it’s possible to live for years with chronic liver disease if you receive the proper medical treatment and halt behaviors that may worsen your condition. Anyone with alcohol-induced liver disease will improve their health and life expectancy if they stop drinking. Patients who do not stop drinking are likely to suffer a variety of life-threatening health problems caused by alcohol-related liver damage. Taking control of the disease before it takes hold of you is the key to your recovery.

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