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coxyhog

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No not with bacon & onions,the human sort.

I recently coughed up some blood whilst having an attack of acid reflux and subsequently went for a gastroscopy which was OK.

But the consultant said that if I coughed the blood up then there needed to be a separate investigation of my chest so my GP has referred me for a CT scan.

A prerequisite of this is a blood test to see if my kidneys are functioning correctly & happily they are.

But they also did a load of other blood tests only one of which was a cause for concern & that was a liver reading of 80 when 40 is the max,exactly what the units are I don't know.

The GP said it's a sure sign of too much alcohol(no surprise there!) and that I should cut down on my intake😒.

Has anyone experienced this & is cutting down enough or do I have to abstain for a period of time to allow my liver to recover? I feel fit as a fiddle.

My mates brother was a raging alky & after a period of abstention he was told he could drink again as his liver had recovered - he didn't,he also had cancer & sadly succumbed to that.

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Both SGOT and SGPT have a max of 40 U/L, though there are many more indicators from a blood sample regarding the liver function, such as Alkaline phospatase, Bilirubin, direct Bilirubin, Albumin, Globulin, Gamma GT and total proteine, so far as I know (from the internet). 3 of these I get checked at my annual blood test in Pattaya for little money, but it doesn't cost much more to have (most of) the rest determined.

Once my Gamma GT was out of range but the next test was ok. Anyway, I am not a heavy drinker, I prefer to enjoy my drinks and not get wasted.

Regarding liver recovery you can read a lot on the internet. As you have got only one, you better take good care of it.

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1 hour ago, coxyhog said:

No not with bacon & onions,the human sort.

I recently coughed up some blood whilst having an attack of acid reflux and subsequently went for a gastroscopy which was OK.

But the consultant said that if I coughed the blood up then there needed to be a separate investigation of my chest so my GP has referred me for a CT scan.

A prerequisite of this is a blood test to see if my kidneys are functioning correctly & happily they are.

But they also did a load of other blood tests only one of which was a cause for concern & that was a liver reading of 80 when 40 is the max,exactly what the units are I don't know.

The GP said it's a sure sign of too much alcohol(no surprise there!) and that I should cut down on my intake😒.

Has anyone experienced this & is cutting down enough or do I have to abstain for a period of time to allow my liver to recover? I feel fit as a fiddle.

My mates brother was a raging alky & after a period of abstention he was told he could drink again as his liver had recovered - he didn't,he also had cancer & sadly succumbed to that.

Personally I would wait for the CT scan as the reading you have is very high. 

A lot of people feel fit as a fiddle but their insides tell a different story. The very fact that you have coughed up blood is a big worry and I would do exactly what the doctor has told you until such time as a full diagnosis has been concluded.

I once had Hep A which directly affects the liver, I was off alcohol for a year because I didn't want to damage my liver further. To be honest just eat well, keep off the alcohol, drink plenty of water and wait for the results and a doctor's conversation about how to move on.

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1 hour ago, Horizondave said:

Personally I would wait for the CT scan as the reading you have is very high. 

I'm not sure if it is very high as I had a text asking me to phone in for a routine telephone consultation.The receptionist gave me an appointment in over a weeks time & only got a GP to ring me on the same day when I mentioned the CT scan.

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59 minutes ago, coxyhog said:

I'm not sure if it is very high as I had a text asking me to phone in for a routine telephone consultation.The receptionist gave me an appointment in over a weeks time & only got a GP to ring me on the same day when I mentioned the CT scan.

Probably because (hopefully) the coughing up blood was an isolated incident needing a bit of investigation. If you were doing it regularly then it might have been a bit more pressing.

If you're not showing any symptoms of early stage liver issues then it is some sound advice. We probably all drink far too much booze anyway. The high reading is incidental to the overall exam, so it probably is not the cause, but something the Doc is duty bound to point out.

Be careful of the "detox your liver" BS that is all around. The liver removes poisons so by its very nature it's not possible to detox it. Best advice would be what the Doc says, keep off the booze and try to have a healthyish diet. Abstaining from booze will do much more good and you're covering all the bases there, because one fine single malt can easily lead to another.

From the information I've got, it takes about a week for the liver to reduce in size from a heavy session as it swells up when you really kick the arse out of it, but if you;re at that stage of drinking then alcohol poisoning and painful kidneys along with other symptoms would possibly manifest themselves first.

Did they find the root cause of the reflux and blood? haitious hernia perhaps?.

Either way, give it a couple of weeks without booze and see how you feel at the end of it.

This is well worth a watch, it is deeply sad and probably best not watched while drinking a bottle of decent red. It certainly changed my outlook and went a long way to me reducing my booze intake.

 

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42 minutes ago, Butch said:

Did they find the root cause of the reflux and blood? haitious hernia perhaps?.

I've had a hiatal hernia for a while so the acid reflux was nothing new,just never coughed up blood before,but it was a bad one with some violent coughing.

I eat a very healthy diet & drink a lot of water & tea.I've also started on iced tea which I used to drink a lot of in Thailand.Liptons peach flavour is very nice.

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I once had liver problems due to medication I was taking (prednisilone) and was at the point of liver failure, I don't know what the reading was at that time but 2 months later my doctor was looking at some recent blood test results and mentioned my liver enzyme levels were high (65) I asked how high they could go and was told into the thousands. So, your 80 was probably no more than an early indicator that you needed to change your lifestyle to bring it back into line.

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If you are a heavy drinker and have mild liver problems, a month off the booze is often enought for it to recover and repair.

If it is damaged badly then a longer period is needed.

The liver is a remarkable organ that can repair better than most others.

Listen to your doctor and take a look at the dry drinker website, it got me through a month off the booze earlier in the year.

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In 2012 my alkaline phosphatase test was 226 where the normal range is 25-90. The other liver function tests were normal. Dr. ordered a follow up ultrasound which showed fatty deposits on the liver. I was drinking quite heavily at the time and took the advice to cut down on the drinking. One year later all liver tests were in the normal range.

I'm curious why the Dr. ordered a CT scan rather than the much simpler, and less expensive ultrasound?

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3 hours ago, boydeste said:

If you are a heavy drinker and have mild liver problems, a month off the booze is often enought for it to recover and repair.

If it is damaged badly then a longer period is needed.

The liver is a remarkable organ that can repair better than most others.

Listen to your doctor and take a look at the dry drinker website, it got me through a month off the booze earlier in the year.

 

Yep....     Us partiers need to give the body some rest. If we do we can enjoy the party without having to cash things in too early.

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53 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

I'm curious why the Dr. ordered a CT scan rather than the much simpler, and less expensive ultrasound?

Well you get that nice warm buzz when they inject the iodine if it's a contrast CT scan.

The liver probably qualifies as soft tissue.

The benefit of administering intravenous contrast for a CT examination is enormous. The use of IV contrast greatly improves the accuracy of the examination and assists excluding many life threatening conditions, such as cancer. IV contrast is mainly used to highlight differences between soft tissues which would otherwise look the same.

 

 

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Well I've been dry since Friday so far so good.

Was told yesterday that I need a chest Xray before the CT scan and today I received a call from my local hospital,the Xray dept run a walk-in service & I can go anytime.

More kudos for the NHS methinks,at least hereabouts.

In & out in 5mins....amazingly efficient.

Edited by coxyhog
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4 hours ago, coxyhog said:

Well I've been dry since Friday so far so good.

Was told yesterday that I need a chest Xray before the CT scan and today I received a call from my local hospital,the Xray dept run a walk-in service & I can go anytime.

More kudos for the NHS methinks,at least hereabouts.

In & out in 5mins....amazingly efficient.

 

Good news. 

 

I think over time nationalized health care got an unfair bad rap. Of course, when a system that is as huge as health care there are going to be long term adjustments. Those changes take a long time to get into place. But, over time systems (if managed properly) can go on to becoming much more efficient and overall more beneficial to all in society,

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