Recently Diagnosed

[Lawrence07]

Hi everyone, just want to share my story and ask for your opinions. First of all, I am not from The Uk. I am from the Philippines, 28 years old, currently working as a health officer in a hospital. I just saw this site after searching for a long time for where I can get good tips regarding my situation.

This story started last May when i had an Ultrasound of my abdomen for monitoring of my fatty liver. The saw an incidental mildly enlarged spleen. A new finding that comes with my fatty liver that i had since 5 years ago with elevated liver enzymes. Back then, my physician told me just to lose weight and is nothing to worry about. So with that findings they referred me to a hematologist since they believe this might be due to a blood disorder, but the hematologist said my labs are all normal. They did a ct scan and saw mildly enlarged spleen and fatty liver with incidental multiple lung nodules on both my lungs, in which they said might be due to an infection since i am exposed in the hospital with various microorganisms.

A month after my ct scan they referred me to a gastro and he was very alarmed with my liver enzymes and the increasing spleen size. He blurted out that there might be a problem in my liver and this might be early cirrhosis, which i was very shocked since my dad died from cirrhosis due to alcohol and nash. He was diagnosed when he was 52 after bleeding, but he managed to live for 4 years after that and died not due to cirrhosis but because of his diabetes. He was given 2 years but still was able to surpass that time. He also had liver cancer due to his cirrhosis 6 months after being diagnosed, had a procedure called TACE and those cancer cells never recurred.

So with that, i underwent a FIBROSCAN last august and I was diagnosed with early compensated cirrhosis. My cbc hgb hct and platelets alk pos and albumin normal. My liver enzymes are high and my direct bilirubin as well as my PT and INR at borderline high levels.

My hepatologist told me that it is due to long years of being obese… he said just to lose weight and there is no medication that can reverse this, saying a liver transplant is the only way to cure this in the future if i start to decompensate.

With that news, i started to become depressed and angry, but my mother who is very supportive helped me a lot and made me realize that this is not the end of the world for me so i started to exercise and lose weight and in span of 4 months, i managed to lose 40 lbs…

Yesterday, i had my ff up check up and did lab works. And amazingly, all of my labs were under normal reference with my direct bilibs and pt slightly elevated. They did a repeat fibroscan and now im contemplating if i am really cirrhotic or not, if i was able to reverse this in only 2 months, or if i have other diagnosis that caused my spleen to enlarged. I also havesevere sleep apnea by the way.

I will show my results to my hepatologist and will wait for my next test. I would just like if anyone of you had the same experience. Thank you so muc

[AyrshireK]

Fibroscan can often give a false high reading when there is ongoing inflammation in your liver - it can't tell the difference between inflamed tissue and actual fibrous tissue so there is a good chance your initial kPa score was a little over inflated.

With your liver inflammation markers having returned to normal it isn't surprising that your kPa figure has reduced and is now perhaps more accurate as to the state of your liver.

This together with the fact you have taken big strides to tackle your weight, diet etc. will have helped to bring that figure down and show improvements in your liver.

Now to continue your healthy living regime, get more weight off and hopefully you can (as your doctor has said) stop your liver from getting worse and perhaps improve the other issues which have knocked on from the intial liver inflammation.

The British Liver Trust has an excellent page on NAFLD plus a really good downloadable brochure on Treating Fatty Liver with Healthy Diet and Exercise - a publication that may be of great use to you.

britishlivertrust.org.uk/in...

britishlivertrust.org.uk/do...

Katie

[kensimmons in reply to AyrshireK]

I completely agree with what Katie wrote. Just keep doing what you are doing and get checked in six months. You might get some very good news, but keep at it for now.

[Lawrence07 in reply to kensimmons]

Thank you very much! Hoping for the best!

[Cat-B]

hi it sounds like you have worked hard on your liver health so please keep going and don’t get complacent. If it helps I decompensated 8 years ago, I still have cirrhosis but my liver is as compensated as it can be. Remember it took years of abuse for it to complain, so give it the same time to recover. Stick to your liver diet ( absolutely no processed foods and no alcohol or salt, high protein) and keep working on improving your daily exercise routine. Good luck and keep up your progress

[Lawrence07 in reply to Cat-B]

Thank you for your advice! Your story gives me a lot of hope!