Enlarged spleen

[donsheray]

I was diagnosed with PBC about 2 years ago at my last ultrasound my spleen had doubled in size. My question is .... is there anyone else out there with the same?

[janejulie]

My spleen is enlarged too , but they jst tell me if i start bleeding from different places then get to the hospital fast

[teddybear7]

Are you having any new symptom's by having an enlarged spleen? I've got some new things going on & just wondered.

[donsheray in reply to teddybear7]

I get out of breath quicker. Oh and I recently had a varicies bleed which sent me to the er and icu for 3 days. I'm at stage 4 actually when I was diagnosed I was already at stage 4.

[dianemle]

Apparently it's common with PBC

[GrittyReads]

Why not talk to the PBC people? I guess they get lots of questions on this and will have a bank of experience to call on. This question makes me realise how ignorant I am, and how hard it must be to answer questions on the whole range of problems that be found with PBC.

For example, what are the symptoms of having an enlarged spleen? How do you know if you've got one? Also, where and how is bleeding supposed to show up? To me, that seems rather vague and heartless advice.

Hope you don't mind me asking, I'm just aware I'm so ignorant of this aspect of PBC.

I hope you get some good answers, and all goes well.

Take care.

[Hidden in reply to GrittyReads]

Not sure if you were asking a question or just making a statement, but here is a link to information about varices (bleeding).

liver.ca/liver-disease/type...

[Hidden]

First off, I'm in Australia, and some of the terms I use may be different from your's - also, I can only speak from my own experience.

So, from what I've been told an enlarged spleen is related to PBC (and probably other conditions) - for me, the first indication I had of having an enlarged spleen was when it showed up in an ultrasound, which also showed that I had moved into cirrhosis stage (I was diagnosed with PBC 26 years ago, so it took quite a while for me to reach Stage 4).

Anyway, back to the topic - GrittyReads asks about symptoms - the only 'physical' symptom I had was a bit of discomfort and breathlessness after eating (I think both my liver and spleen were enlarged). Another symptom that I'm getting now is showing up in my LFT's blood work (Liver Function Tests) - over the last 9 months my platelets have been dropping [in Australia the range for platelets is 150-400] and are now 81 - I have now been diagnosed with Thrombocytopenia. Apparently the spleen likes to hang onto platelets - see link below.

mayoclinic.org/diseases-con...

[lynda75]

Hi ... I also found out this year that my spleen is enlarged. I'm afraid it's normally a sigh that things have advanced with your pbc when this happens. They found out mine was enlarged by accident only be cause I had kidney stones And a report was sent to my liver specialist. I wonder how long it would have been left undetected if I didn't have the kidney stones. Anyway I went for an ultrasound for my liver after this and it should that I was now in cirrhosis stage with with liver. That there was nodules on my liver and it was under pressure so that's why my spleen Is enlarged. It is so common with pbc.... I've been reading so much about it. Just eat healthy ... low fat ... low salt and exercise when possible and mind yourself as much as you can that's all we can do . Sending you good vibes xx