Hi and welcome, you'll find plenty of people on here that can offer advice.
As far as a liver biopsy in my experience it's not that bad. It's uncomfortable and not the most pleasant feeling in the world but it's not horrendous.
Mine was carried out with the aid of an ultrasound to help the doc guide the needle to where it needs to be. Once in the right spot the needle fires and grabs a very small portion of the liver, when this happens the contraption/needle they use makes a snap sound, it feels odd but again nothing too bad. Then you're done. Now comes the wait. They will ask you to lay on your right hand side for a good few hours. Once they are happy you are ok you'll get sent home.
Not sure I'm much help. But I'm kinda in the same boat.
I hope you get to the bottom of it. All I have learnt is keep fighting to find out what's wrong. I have for 5 years but all my consultants get very confused when they look at me.
My circumstances were very similar to yours I had all types of scans which all appeared clear it was not until I had a biopsy that they found I had N a SH although a biopsy can be uncomfortable it was the only way that they were able to find out what it was that I had from that I have Now slowly been able to establish my cause. Night shift work. I have never drunk smoked etc. It's worth it.
Have they carried out the tests for Auto-Immune Conditions such as Auto-Immune Hepatitis? They need to do antibody tests. AIH is usually diagnosed through a bank of tests (including anti-body blood tests and liver biopsy) and processes of elimination (it can't be that so lets look at this) and a positive reaction to steroid treatment (usually prednisolone to bring downt he inflammation levels).
If they do a liver biopsy it will look at the liver at a cellular level and hopefully give them an answer as to what is causing your issue as you don't want your liver to be inflamed for any length of time. You'll here it said on here very often that the worst bit about liver biopsy is the laying prone for a few hours afterwards. My hubby has had two biopsies of his liver and he described it as the most benign procedure of any he's had done during treatment of his liver. [He has cirrhosis due to AIH].
In some folks they never discover what is causing the inflammation and we have a number of posters who have a diagnosis of cryptogenic liver disease i.e. doctors haven't got a clue what it is.
By benign procedure I mean it was painless and trouble free (smooth sailing) compared to other procedures he's had ........... principally endoscopies. Hubby has often said he'd rather have a hundred liver biopsies over a single endoscopy (which he hates & has had lots of issues with).
I wouldn't imagine that your condition is NASH, however, even very fit and thin people can get fatty liver disease. The British Liver Trust has a page all about NAFLD and NASH at :- britishlivertrust.org.uk/li... It tells you how they would go about treating that or making lifestyle changes that can improve it. There are also medical trials ongoing at the moment (the REGENERATE trial) which are looking at the potential for tablets to treat and reverse NASH.
As regards cryptogenic liver disease they might struggle to cease the inflammation or might go with a trial of steroids. My hubby never had any treatment for his liver until he presented with advanced cirrhosis symptoms and only now is he on steroids to keep inflammation at bay. His AIH is supposed to be burned out so he isn't on the other treatments that patients with Auto Immune Hepatitis usually get.
I didn't feel anything during my biopsy it was over so quickly. I was actually awake during my biopsy. The only pain that I had was in the recovery room. I was given morphine for the pain. The morphine worked very quickly. My results were back within a week..
I've had so many different procedures done. I can't remember if my pain medicine for the needle biopsy procedure was given through IV. They thought I was asleep , but I was awake throughout the entire procedure. Whatever they gave me worked because I didn't feel anything until I got back to the recovery room. The morphine was given through an IV though. The morphine worked very quickly.
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