Morning all. I just got copy of a letter that will be sent to my Gp which was sent from my gasto consultant. On it was just saying what was said at my visit to him. My question is it is saying diagnosis! Child A alcohol induce cirrohsis. My question is what does the child A mean. Would be glad of Any input..
Thanks.
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Dort1234
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Thanks for reply. I read the link but will need to study it more. From what I could make child A is one of the worsed scoring and I have a year to live lol.
No, Child-Pugh is A, B & C, with C being the worst. The survival rates/years are really a wet finger in the air. Seriously, I'm not just saying that, that really is the case. I am also C-P A.
Thanks. I never heard that saying wet fingers in the air.before could you please explain. It's weird that is the second saying this week i heard amd didnt know what it meant. my bother was giving me some gossip and he said what that old chestnut I laughed he had to explain it to me. I thought I was well clued up on old sayings but obviously not..lol..
It comes from licking your finger, so that it is wet and therefore more sensitive to the breeze/temp. You then stick it in the air to find the prevailing wind direction. If you did it the following day, you would (probably) get a different answer, as the wind direction would have changed.
So to use it metaphorically, is to suggest that opinion is changing all the time and what you are told today, will often be completely different to what your are told tomorrow, so take it with a pinch of salt.
Hope you are feeling well and the answers so far have given you some piece of mind.
I'm assuming that your diagnosis has helped you to make those changes in your life which will help your liver recover from any harm that might have been done.
There is plenty of advice and support available from the people on here. Nothing is ever 'too trivial' to be raised with us, we all started from total ignorance before we gained our first hand experience of liver disease.
The immediate changes, which I expect your consultant and GP have already suggested are; exercise, a good balanced diet with a careful eye on food containing high sugar or salt. As you have a diagnosis of alcohol related liver disease, this means no alcohol - ever. If stopping is going to be difficult for you, go back to your GP and ask to be referred to local alcohol services. My liver disease was alcohol related so I know that this might be the hard part in getting your liver back to a healthy state.
I've attached a link to The British Liver Trust (who we can thank for this forum) which includes an explanation of the stages of liver disease including the Child Pugh score.
From what you have said, there is no reason why you cant prevent further deteriation in liver function. The consequences of not taking heed of this scare or warning can be very serious indeed. I was unfortunate in that the changes I made came too late and eventually the only treatment was a liver transplant. I'm not trying to frighten you, but you need to know how important it is that you listen to the advice from your GP and consultant
Have to confess that I went reluctantly as it was a condition of being listed for a liver transplant. As I had not had a drink for almost a year, I didn't think I needed to. However, I was given no choice. Alcohol services or no transplant. Who would choose death over a few meetings ? So I began attending and it was an excellent idea. I was only not drinking because I was too ill to tolerate alcohol. What was important was how I would be with a completely healthy body. I made full use of the opportunity and actually enjoyed both the one to one counselling and the group work. Even got a certificate in counselling through them. Then attended post transplant to give encouragement and support to those I had met there. Maybe you were unlucky or just felt ' this is for other people - I'm not like them '
My advice would be to find a different organisation and try again.
Thanks for the reply. I was just interested to see if they had helped. I help on another forum, which has a section for people struggling with alcohol and to a man (and actually more women) not one has said that ARCs help. I was lucky in having a shockingly bad experience with one, contacted the director of them in London, who was actually quite decent, who sorted me out with another branch and told them to give me the medication (I don't mean detox benzos) I was after. But still the support was awful and they do not understand, that you have to become ambivalent to alcohol not resist it, because then you will always be fighting a battle that you are likely to lose.
Alcohol changes the brain and there are medications out there (approved by NICE/NHS) that can reverse this process, but they are totally unaware of it, in fact they are resistive to it. I wish there was better support for this, because so many more people could be helped before they got to an advanced stage.
For me, they saved my life. In the US AA is the go to for all health care professionals when it comes to dealing with this disease. aA has the highest success rate of ANY treatment since 1935. I have been sober for 9 years nearly. Because of AA. You see alcoholism is not just physical, it encompasses all aspects of your life, emotional, mental spiritual etc. the step work and fellowship help work on those things. If you don't change those things your bound to drink again, either that or become a dry drunk..someone who is angry, miserable and resentful. It's much easier to get help from others going through the same thing.
Over here AA seems to not be as important, but it should be. Especially given the statistics. Sadly, most of us die from this disease..the ones of us who don't will normally tell you that a 12 step program, detox or rehab andcontinued interaction with others like us seems to be the golden ticket into sobriety. I can't tell you how many people I have known over the years wh did not stick with the program..for them they all ended up in jails, institutions or dead. Just last year a girl I sponsored overdoesed and died. She was 35.
Check a 12 step program out!
There's a great free app called Steps Away that shows you all the meetingstimes and places in any area in the world. I used it when I first moved here. There are also online meetings for those too ill to go out.
I'm glad it worked for you. But medication was what helped me out, to reset my brain so I became ambivalent to alcohol. I never attended the AA, but I've never met anyone in the UK who has said it helped. A couple said it was nice to talk to other people in the beginning, but it did not really help them to stop.
Once again, I'm glad it helped you, but for me it would be medication every time, along with someone who could explain the psychology of alcohol addiction - I had to learn it for myself, as I have never come across someone that really understands it, and what it does to the body and brain (I don't mean cirrhosis etc.)
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