Every day i have bouts of feeling faint accompanied by excessive sweating. I was very anaemic until recently following an iron infusion.

[Gocycle]

Howver, i still have the episodes.

I have decompensated liver disease and have had ascites and large bleeds caused by varices

[Hidden]

My husband (cirrhosis and HCV and diabetes) had quite a few bouts of this and there has never been any explanation by consultants as to why ????? If you get an answer - would be curious to find out cause xxxxx hope you are having a 'good' day xxxxxxx

[papataal]

Hello gocycle and robswife, I use to have cirrhosis with already existing diatbetes, I remember fainting, sweatty epsisodes, the great consultants in this country had me test my blood sugars and blood pressure more often to try and track it down, in my case my blood pressure and sugar were going down to fast and this is what they explained to me, got a control of it, and seem to work fine I have had my transplant (about 4 years ago), the disturbing thing is when in I was in the USA the doctors there accused me of being a hypochrondiac! because they could not tie it down to anyone thing. You both do need to keep badgering the Consulants.

Hope everything work out for you both!

[Gocycle in reply to papataal]

Hi. The blood sugar link sounds interesting as what usually fixes it faster is to drink and eat something but I don't diabetes. On the other hand, I think i read somewhere that liver disease increases the metabolism so running out of energy more quickly is part of the disease. Thanks for your reply. When I mention it to my doctor he just nods...helpful!

[Gocycle]

Hi robswife, thanks for your reply. Did you see papaatal's response? Don't know if it rings any bells with you. Regards

[Sheana]

I get this too. My Dr thought that it was due to sudden drop in blood pressure but I have measured BP and it's ok. Sometime eating something helps - a sugary sweet - even though I am not diabetic - but then sometimes it doesn't. So I am still bothered by it with no real answers.

[Gocycle]

Thanks Sheana. I thought it was my bp and I measured it too. It was ok. It is kept low though because I'm on the max dose of the beta blocker propranolol. At first I thought it was all the meds I take since it often happens about couple of hours after I take 7 of the them, but then it started happening anytime. Keep well

[AyrshireK]

Are you eating regularly? Hubby has cirrhosis, probably caused by AIH, varices and anemia and we just saw a liver specialist dietician at the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit. Hubby has been put on a high carbohydrate, high protein diet. Having to eat regularly throughout the day - breakfast with carbs and protein, high carb mid-morning snack, carb & protein lunch, high carb mid-afternoon snack, carb & protein evening meal then a huge (10 carb point) supper to last the long fast overnight.

When you have liver disease your liver can no longer store energy and during any gap in eating (avoid long gaps) a healthy liver would release it's stored energy whereas a diseased liver can't and so your body will utilize body muscle to fuel periods of fast - hence muscle wastage in liver disease sufferers.

We got a really good, simple and easy to follow 6 page leaflet from the SLTU about diet and liver disease, i've typed it out into Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Word and if you think it'll help you out then PM me with your email address and I can ping you a copy - every little helps.

Hubby has just received a letter saying that Consultant from SLTU has now put him onto iron tablets (200mg x 3 daily). That's fun trying to fit in all those meals plus 3 pills that shouldn't be taken with tea, coffee, milk, eggs, grains - i.e. all the things he's having to eat to fulfill the liver diet plan. Alarms set so that all get taken at appropriate times - iron tablets 1 hour before or 2 hours after any of the above foods.

Anyway, hope you get some answers.

Katie