Living With Liver Disease

In your throat is the answer. I never had varices, but I have had hemorrhoids so I guess I’m qualified to say something about them. Varices, quite simply are hemorrhoids in the throat or esophagus. Both varices and hemorrhoids are caused by too much pressure in the veins, one caused by ‘straining’, the other caused by…

Confusion, madness, altered mental state, changing levels of consciousness, delirium tremens? All apply to the third component of our Trinity of ascites, varices and this, hepatic encephalopathy. This is possibly the worst of the symptoms and certainly the least understood. In simple terms hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is the accumulation of toxins or poisons in the…

So here we have the Trinity. All connected, all related. All of them life-threatening, all of them awful. All of them symptomatic of End Stage Liver Disease, all of them part and parcel of life with cirrhosis. Ascites, Varices and Hepatic Encephalopathy. All due to portal hypertension as the root cause. None of them curable.…

Disease Management – “What?” I hear you say. Yep, that’s right, disease management! If you read the previous article you will no doubt realize that the medical profession is limited in what it can do to help you. It is important for you to realize this and equally, I think it important that they (the…

In this series of articles we have explored some of the aspects of the disease. But the effects of the disease go far beyond where you might expect them to go. Apart from cirrhosis forcing you into a mental battle of enormous proportions, the spread it its impact has huge and detrimental collateral damage on…

So here we are, sufferers or maybe victims of this disease and everything in the garden is looking less than wonderful. We are now suffering major symptoms and slowly coming to the realization that not much can be done for them medically speaking.  Our friends are deserting us in droves and as for our finances?…

Use of Protein to Cure Ascites Ascites is the most common symptom and one of the worst! Simply put, ascites is the accumulation of fluid in the abdomen. This fluid leaks out of the veins due to two factors: 1. Low levels of Serum Albumin produced by the liver 2. Portal Hypertension brought about by…