Scared and starting out lost

[RandomGuy5000]

I've been diagnosed with NAFLD a few months ago. At this time my ALT was at 65 units/L and bilirubin was at 1.6 mg/dL. My primary care doctor basically told me to lose weight and I should be good to go. I changed my eating habits and started losing some weight. I went from 212 lbs to about 195ish in a couple months. I did no exercise during this time. Now here this past few weeks things have changed. I've had a pain in my upper right abdomen that comes and goes. It doesn't really hurt if I touch the area but it is a dullish to kinda sharp pain that comes and goes all day long. The doctor says he thinks is a musculoskeletal pain and it should go away. So two weeks goes by and the pain still comes and goes and now the corners of my eyes are starting to turn yellow. I go back in and he now orders some different blood work labs and I'm going in for a HIDA scan next week to check my gallbladder. He says I have Gilbert's syndrome to explain the yellowing of the eyes. But I've never had that happen before in my life. My ALT is now 52 units/L and bilirubin is 2.0 mg/dl. I've googled myself into a depressive oblivion over all of this. I've just been dwelling on all of this hard this past few weeks and am googleing my self beyond scared. So now I've changed my diet drastically and have been exercising a couple times a week. I'm now down to 188 lbs. I'm just asking for opinions from experience from people on here please. Does this all sound normal and are my numbers and stuff in the ok and I'm right on track? Or is this very serious at this point and I need to do something else? Thank you all in advance.

[nash2 Partner]

Hi Random, you probably know by now that Dr Google might kill you so glad you came in. I'll assume that you are talking to a GP. There is new guidance about how primary care is supposed to manage people who could have liver issues. The first step is to calculate a score from your blood tests called Fib-4. It calculates a probability of whether you have a problem that needs to have more testing. You can do it yourself with an online calculator. The guidance helps the GP decide if you need to be seen by a specialist. At this point that is a key thing you need to know. Try to take a breath, you are doing the right thing by losing weight but there isn't enough information yet to understand your situation so getting on the right track is the key thing. Here is a link you might share with your doc if he has questions. You can print the chart and take that to him as it summarizes all the info.

fattyliverfoundation.org/ne...

Good Luck

Wayne

[RandomGuy5000 in reply to nash2]

Thanks for responding to this so fast! I really appreciate the help and I believe I just did the fib-4 correctly. My platelets show as 206 k/ul so I put it in as 206 with the ast level of 24 and alt of 52 along with my age 36. I got 0.58 which is looking good from what I think I understand by reading through this process. If this is correct then this is the most reassuring thing I've seen online in weeks. Thank you so much for this!

[nash2 Partner in reply to RandomGuy5000]

It doesn't prove that there isn't something going on with your liver that you need to pay attention to but it says the probability is high that you don't have advanced fibrosis which is the killer.

[nash2 Partner in reply to nash2]

If you get a chance, have a FibroScan done. That measures liver stiffness which is the thing that you really want to know.

[Alterity]

Stay positive and watch what you eat. Not everything that is dietary is also easy to digest. If you liver is tired and having trouble functioning and you have pain it can be because you ate something it doesn't like to digest. I have a few things especially red meat my liver just refuses to digest especially if I am stressed. Watch your stress level. Listen to your body. Gets lots of rest. Your liver digest best at rest. I've been going for 22 years since diagnosed and have learned so much, however there are times I don't do what is right and my liver will rebel and tell me to rest or else.