elevated liver enzymes

[sade80]

Hi, I'm alcohol dependent and waiting for a detox roughly 3 weeks time. My lfts are:

ALT - 325

AST - 258

GGT - 293

I'm going for an ultrasound on Monday. I had two last year and both were fine also an endoscopy. Do these indicate severe liver damage? My ast/alt ratio is 0.79.

[fntn]

Your numbers are mildly elevated but these are your liver enzymes, and they do not reflect your liver's actual health. People with very bad livers can have normal liver enzymes. They simply reflect the damage your liver has been dealing with for the past few days.

The numbers that do point to your liver's true health are: INR -or- prothrombin, albumin, bilirubin, platelet counts and creatinine. A single number that is also used is called the MELD score.

You might ask your doctor about these numbers wrt your latest bloodwork. But the US and endoscopies are a very good indicator wrt advanced liver disease. Keep in mind that US cannot actually see the cirrhosis, but it can see the side effects of portal hypertension (a by-product of decompensated cirrhosis), i.e. enlarged spleen or large diameter portal veins, varices, etc.

Your numbers do not point to alcoholic hepatitis, which is good. But slowing down a bit would help things out of course, which I suspect you already know. We all want to enjoy ourselves, myself included, but our bodies do push back sometimes, and let us know something isn't quite right.

Take care and hope things workout well.

[sade80]

I think these were the only enzymes out of range. I know bilirubin was fine.

I had two ultrasounds last year and all was fine.

[fntn]

Given the normalice of your other numbers, you are likely dealing with an irritation. Let's hope so, take care.