Liver Cirrhosis is an irreversible disease, i.e., it cannot be cured. Although it sounds extremely terrifying, there are ways to get the liver to be stable and treatments are being tried and tested to help restore a liver with cirrhosis. This disease can be lifelong or can last for a number of years.
What exactly are Liver Cirrhosis?
Cirrhosis is a complicated disease where the liver loses important liver cells. There is ample scarring of the liver and it is something that cannot be undone. After this disease the liver has an abnormal structure and its function starts deteriorating rapidly. Imagine a group of people looting and raiding a village and then leaving it barren and burnt. This is exactly what happens when different diseases actually lead to cirrhosis. They kill and injure important liver cells which causes extreme inflammation. Since our body tries to work on every injury and tries to heal it with new tissues, it does the same with the liver but does not achieve the desired results. It tries to repair the liver, but in turn causes tissues to form something known as ‘scar tissues’. The liver cells that do not face any damages, multiply in large numbers to replace the dead cells. This results in regenerative nodules, i.e., new liver cells within the area of the scar tissue itself.
Early Symptoms of Cirrhosis
- Jaundice is one of the first symptoms of cirrhosis. The skin becomes yellow and this is due to an excess of bilirubin in the blood.
- Excessive fatigue. The kind of fatigue you feel if you have cirrhosis is very different from being busy the entire day and coming back home tired and drained. This fatigue will last you all throughout the day without you moving around or exerting yourself. The best doctor for Liver Cirrosis treatment recommend showing a physician as soon as you see this symptom.
- Itching: The itching is intense. The cause of this is the bile products getting segmented into the skin.
- Palms of the hand become red.
- Easy bruising: The skin becomes extremely sensitive and susceptible to bruising. This is due to the diseased liver not producing enough blood clotting factors.
- Extreme weakness: Weakness is associated with extreme fatigue.
- Psychological changes: The job of a liver is to flush out toxins and when a liver gets damaged by cirrhosis, it can’t filter out the toxins effectively. Due to this there is an excessive accumulation of toxins in the blood, especially ammonia and this may lead to psychological changes known as hepatic encephalopathy. The changes are mild at first, for example, people tend to forget things, their concentration wavers and they aren’t able to complete simple tasks. However as the disease progresses, things become worse and they may fall into a coma and incur severe personality changes.
The only way you can completely fight this disease is to make sure that it never affects you. You can do this but staying away from alcoholic drinks and not consuming them in access. Nothing can cause much as damage to your liver as alcohol can.