If you can help me understand? please? - Liver & Pancreas Disorders Message Board

verysad123 · 11-20-2006, 08:04 AM

My husband drinks 10/12 beers a nite and has for many many years. I know his liver is probably really damaged. He feels crappy all the time and has lost alot of weight over the years. He now has the itch thing going on... I have read alot about liver damage and I know everyone is different but how long after a person starts with the itchy does the other things start to come on. Like the swelling and yellow eyes? I am scared for him and I just wish he would see a doctor but until swelling or real yellow eyes he is just going to think its anything BUT what it really might be LIVER DAMAGE. Please anyone who can just shed alittle light here me would help?

so sadden

danielm · 11-20-2006, 06:40 PM

It's different for each person actually. I had fatty liver disease, elevated counts and never got Jaundice or yellowed eyes at all.

It's imperitive that if your husband is not feeling well to visit a doctor and get his levels tested (it's a simple blood test). Whilst alcoholic liver disease is actually reversable, you have to catch it in the early stages, else it leads to permanent damage and sadly, death.

If your husband only has itching at present, it may not be related to the drinking, but by the sounds of his consumption, it sounds like he's not doing himself a whole lot of good anyway.

Men are stubborn when it comes to their health and often don't do anything until the last minute. If he's chugging 10-12 a night, those are definite danger signs even if he doesn't have any liver damage at present - long term with that kind of consumption he sure will.

Get him off to the Dr, even if it's for your peace of mind and get his levels tested. We can offer support and encouragement, but only a qualified doctor can give you the advice you really need.

Cheers

miyu · 11-24-2006, 09:34 PM

I feel for you also...

if you lose your liver form drinking, doctors wont help you. they may consider it if you are proven sober for a number of years. but how can you prove it? Doctors believe you will only do the same thing to the new liver

boboon · 08-23-2007, 10:53 AM

I am on hospice care now and I found that there is more than drinking that will disqualify a person from getting the lifesaving procedure of a liver transplant. Apparently they also do not transplant people with cancer until the cancer is cured for a year. The last surgery I had about killed me and then there were a couple of "mistakes" made by the doctors that lead me to a place where I know I will die. I just have to deal with it. I got hepatitis "C" having surgery in 1979 and now my liver is gone and I have cancer of the pancreas. Life has its many twists and turns and our time table may not be able to match our circumstances.

I too think your husband needs to see a doctor, but he also needs a drug/alcohol addiction program. My younger brother drank himself to death and there is so much literature about the damage that alcohol causes one can see that drinking or doing drugs to cope with life is a disorder.

:wave: :wave: