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Do I have Liver cirrhosis or Liver disease?

Hi everyone,

I am a 30 year old woman who is extremely anxious and a hypochondriac so most of the time something weird happening with my body, however minor, sends me down an endless rabit hole. Lately I do feel like something maybe seriously wrong. I have had a throbbing aching pain in my right upper abdomen right under my rib cage that comes and goes off and on fir about avyear and a but didn’t feel like i should get it checked out because it doesn’t usually last very long but in the past couple of weeks i have had some nausea and dizzyness/motion sickess and the ache has returned a but more often. I have become concerns as i have started to piece together all the random symptoms that have started around a year or so too, like night sweats, itchy skin and at times fogginess/memory problems. now I have been a pretty heavy social drinker since I was 16 and for the past several years my drinking had picked up quite a bit to where my average was 4 bottles of wine a week, sometimes more sometimes less. The past few months I have slowed it down and stated taking a week break between drinking sonetime only having a bottle of wine of two within a two week time frame until a week and half ago when i decided to quit altogether becayse of the pain and nausea/dizzyness. i had an ultrasound which came back normal and bloodwork that showed a slightly elevated bilirubin. the doctor didn’t seem concerned anoyt the bilirubin and said he wasn’t planning to do any more investigations but i don’t think he realized how bad my drinking history is. I am just scared that my liver is in really poor shspe or that I have cirrhosis.?
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683231 tn?1467323017
For most people it takes decades of very hard drinking to cause liver disease.

Not knowing you, how many years has it been since you were 16 and started drinking?

“About 10 to 20 percent of heavy drinkers usually develop cirrhosis after 10 or more years. Generally, drinking 80 grams of ethanol daily for 10 to 20 years is required to develop cirrhosis which corresponds to approximately one liter of wine, eight standard sized beers, or one half pint of hard liquor each day.”

If you had liver disease it should have shown up on the tests you took.

How high was your Bilirubin? Do you have symptoms of elevated Bilirubin like jaundice (yellow eyes and skin)?

The symptoms you have described are not really symptoms of cirrhosis.

I have had liver cirrhosis for over 10 years and have none of those symptoms.

From the Mayo Clinic

“High total bilirubin that is mostly unconjugated (indirect) may be caused by:

Anemia
Cirrhosis
A reaction to a blood transfusion
Gilbert syndrome -- a common, inherited condition in which there is a deficiency of an enzyme that helps to break down bilirubin.
Viral hepatitis
A reaction to drugs
Alcoholic liver disease
Gallstones
Strenuous exercise can increase your bilirubin levels.

Caffeine, penicillin, barbiturates, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) called salicylates all lower your bilirubin levels.“

Not to say that excessive drinking is a good thing. Drinking too much has many consequences other than solely health related. There are also social consequences and mental health effects from drinking too much as well as potential health risks.

My suggestion is to believe your doctor and consider trying to reduce your alcohol consumption if you can and getting help to stop drinking if you can’t do it on your own.

Also if you are not currently under treatment for your anxiety and hypochondria you may consider getting counseling to help with these issues.

Best of luck to you.
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