Been a heavy drinker for a few years, especially during the first 3 months of this year, until I noticed pain and bloated feeling in upper right abdomen after a particularly heavy night. Abstained for a few days after the feeling subsided, tried drinking again and the feeling returned, abstained again for over a month, tried a sip to test it and the feeling returned again...
Can't see a GP due to covid, and I know you guys can't diagnose me, just wondering has anyone else had a similar experience? Does this sound typical of hepatitis? Fatty liver? Something else? I don't have other symptoms and won't touch alcohol again until I can see a GP and know exactly what's going on.
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Ellenisworried
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Hi, I had the same problem a few years ago, pain and bloating after drinking, it started the day after drinking and tended to last for hours. I was diagnosed with fatty liver disease. I eventually gave up alcohol and gradually improved. My liver is clear now and I’m so glad I gave up.
It’s actually not such a gradual improvement. My fatty liver cleared up within six months. The doc was happy (as was I) but warned me to keep off booze forever.
Hi Ellen,
You should still be able to speak with a GP on the phone despite Covid, they really would be best placed to advise. You could request some liver blood tests and an ultrasound scan.
It could be that alcohol is inflaming your liver, if the pain is not there when you do not drink, it may be a good idea to avoid alcohol.
I wasn’t aware that liver inflammation could occur so quickly (within minutes) after an alcoholic drink.
As I understood it from conversations with my consultant the liver does not have nerves so cannot feel pain but when it is inflamed and enlarged it presses on the surrounding capsule, this causing the pain.
It sounds like this has now changed based on your advice to Ellen?
Sorry if I’ve missed something here and is there any research available to read please?
I’m sorry if you have misunderstood the reply, I was simply suggesting that heavy alcohol use can cause hepatitis ( inflammation of the liver) which in turn can cause it to enlarge and cause pressure on the Glisson's capsule.
You certainly find out who your friends are when they decide a drink is more important than your health. The clues are there.... you drink ... there's pain, when you don't drink theres no pain. I would be listening to my body not my friends.
To be fair to them most people aren’t educated on the effects of alcohol on the liver. I wasn’t even that educated on it before I joined this forum, I always had the same mindset “one beer won’t hurt”.
I guess until it hurts you or hurts someone you love then there’s no reason to get educated on the subject which is a shame because so many people my age are clueless about the damage they are doing to their body. Something like this should be taught in school but we know that will never happen because then less people would like the governments pockets...
I've struggled trying to find a way to answer this properly for you,the alarm bells are telling you from your stomach area that soon as you touch a drink (alcohol) you're getting pains etc,it could be anything that's drink related, and many of these drink problems can end up with further investigations,especially since you've been a heavy drinker, you are asking questions, and unfortunately drinking alcohol brings numerous health problems,and trying to narrow anyone of these down is quite difficult,your doing the right thing by keeping off the booze, and as for your 'mates' well they aren't the ones who are suffering with the pains etc eh,explain your symptoms to the doctor, be honest with him/her about your drinking habits, because otherwise they could miss what they are looking for in the first place,you may need to change your lifestyle, but I wish you all the best.
Hi with respect to "so called " friends " just ignore it. My response would be - it's causing me problems and I need to get it investigated. It could be fatty liver but you need to get some follow up. You'll get plenty of good advice on this forum. Good luck
I have posted on my "journey" just recently. But to re-cap: I am 59 years old and have drank like a lot of fellas do moderately but very frequently (pretty much daily) most of my adult life. I never got drunk in the sense of falling over, falling asleep etc but I certainly looked forward to 2/3 pints - 4 cans after work for years with no (apparent) ill effects. As I was keen to loose some weight last year, I ditched the beer and switched to white wine and gin & tonics in order to keep the calories down, BIG mistake. As a lifelong beer drinker I couldn't slow down the drinking "rate". Consequently my wine consumption was over 1 bottle a day and perhaps 2 if I started on a sunny day in lockdown ! Shortly after switching to wine from beer I started to get what I initially felt was a bloating feeling under my right hand side rib cage. Never occurred to be that my alcohol consumption was anything to do with it. Having hyper health anxiety and ALWAYS fearing the worst I put off a visit to the doctors for months - the bloating / ache never got worse but was a constant reminder that there was "something" there. Anyway after lying - cause thats what I did - to the doc about how much I drank I was sent for a Ultrasound. All clear nothing to be seen on Liver, Pancreas, Gall Bladder bile duct and kidney. Happy with that and I carried on drinking. Bloat never went away so my mind turned to my stomach - its gotta by "something" in there. Lied to the doctor again about my drinking and got a Endoscopy and biopsy of the stomach lining. Not a fun procedure but thankfully all clear. Getting to the end I started to do a bit more research. The "stopdrinkingexpert" on Youtube and a NHS video described my symptoms exactly. I'll put the links at the bottom if I can. Anyway - I packed up 28 days ago and slowly but surely the bloat/ache under my ribs is going to the point I can go days now without noticing anything. Am I missing drinking - you bet I am, especially when my wife has her ONE glass a night. But I am going to stick this out and get my liver right again. You don't have to be a alcoholic to make your liver sore and enlarge (I have since found out)
Pain with drinking alcohol has been associated with Hodgkin lymphoma, but in general, pain associated with alcohol consumption is much more commonly due to other conditions.
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