I was wondering if anyone else has suffered with severe itching due to cirrhosis of the liver. It is affecting my quality of life badly

[wilmawemyss]

Severe itching

[AyrshireK]

Severe itching or pruritis with liver disease is often due to you having massively elevated bilirubin levels in your blood. Have you had bloods taken and tested recently? When was your last scan to make sure you have no bile duct issues causing a build up of bilirubin.

What is your current level of care? Have you been referred to a liver transplant unit at all. Uncontrollable and quality of life limiting pruritis is often a thing which will move you up a transplant list if you were on it. So, if you arn't already under a liver transplant unit seek referral.

There are medications that can be prescribed for elevated bilirubin, things like ursodilol which is prescribed to those who have PBC to stop bile build up plus there are antihistimines ( fexofenadine) that can counteract the itching.

Contact your consultant if this is a new(ish) symptom and get checked out.

Katie

[wilmawemyss in reply to AyrshireK]

Thank you Katie will have a word with my doctor

[Flowergirl24 in reply to wilmawemyss]

Hi Wilmawemyss

I totally sympathise with you. Katie is right about the severe itching due to high levels of bilirubin. I had very severe itching when my bilirubin was 400+ pre transplant. I had an Aqueous Cream with 1% Mentol (this was prescribed by the hospital & later GP) or you can order it from the chemist at about £30.00 per pot. It did help slightly. The Aveeno brand of body washes etc helped too.

The high dosage of prednisone for me eventually helped calm it down but with side effects, but every case is different.

Good luck.

CK

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Hi,

As Katie has suggested, any new symptom should really be assessed by your own doctor. Good luck and keep us posted