Cirrhosis Portal Hypertension & Enlarged Spleen -will he get better?

[ijustrun]

Hi,

My friend has cirrhosis. He is sober now for 5 months. I am qutie sure he will never drink again.

Unfortunately he is in tough shape. Here are his symptoms:

-Very very jaundiced
-clotting factor very bad
-Spleen enlarged (effecting bone marrow)
-slight ascites
-Portal Hypertension
-Very tired, low energy

Will his health improve?

Thanks,

ijustrun

[ARTB]

Hard to say whether his health will improve. Most likely it will not.  There are stages of cirrhosis.  Your friend sounds like he has uncompensated cirrhosis which means that his liver is not doing its job.  Does he see a liver specialist?  If not he should, and should do it quickly.  Since he has been sober for 5 months he would most likely be eligable for a transplant at most centers.  Most want documented sobriety for 6 months but that varies.  He needs to look into this and if he is not well enough to do it on his own he will need and advocate to help him.

[GraigC]

My mom has had cirrhosis for 9 years now. Doctors originally said she would last about a year it was so advanced. One thing we did was change to a vegitarian diet. They have trouble digesting proteins and it causes a lot of other problems. That helped. She used to get transfusions all the time, but for the last 5 years, she's been doing very well. No latchulose (what they try to give them to get rid of toxins) ever!!