So your doctor has indicated that you have a fatty liver and that you should go home to diet and exercise. You trust your doctor they have taken care of you for years. You don’t pay much attention to what he said about diet and exercise. If this was serious he would have been more concerned. You go on with your life, wings and beer with your friends, ice cream and soda pop with your kids. Life is fun and you don’t feel sick. Exercise is walking the dog 2 times a day you make a point of using diet pop and low fat products at home so you know that you are going to lose weight someday.
A year later and you start to notice that you are having a lot of stomach aches that make you remove spicy wings from your diet. This doesn’t seem to help so you keep eliminating foods you think might be causing them… You start to notice that on the walk with the dog you are getting tired much faster. You promise yourself you will start to go to bed earlier at night that should help. Overall you feel off but your life is stressful and you are aging so it all makes sense.
You get the kids to walk the dog. You know you can’t give him the exercise he needs so you give that up. You mention to your family that you aren’t feeling well and they laugh it off and tell you to stop eating chips! You start to notice that you are incredibly itchy. You are sure something isn’t right so you go to the doctor. The doctor gives you a steroid cream to help with the itching and suggests ant acids for the stomach aches. As for the general malaise he suggests a multivitamin and asks you to come back in 3 months to see how things are.
You come down with colds and flus and you can’t seem to fight them off anymore. You load up on Vitamin C and make a note to talk to your doctor about that. You are so tired but when you lie down to sleep you are awake with the pain in your stomach. You are taking so many ant acid tablets but they don’t seem to help. The itching seems to move all over your body, there is not enough steroid cream to cover your whole body. You get aggravated easily and your memory seems to be failing your family is getting tired of your constant whining and complaining.
When you go back to your doctor you tell him that you are fed up with feeling awful. He decides to run another blood test and refer you to a gastroentologist. The appointment for the gastroentologist is in 3 months. Your doctor doesn’t call back regarding the blood test so you wait for the gastroentologist appointment.
The specialist looks over all your reports. He isn’t sure if this is a gallbladder, or pancreas issue or possibly a liver issue. He orders an ultrasound to see what is happening in your stomach. He sits you down and tells you that based on what he sees your liver is in trouble. The specialist schedules you for a biopsy and tells you that you have NASH. The biopsy will be scheduled as soon as possible.
After the biopsy you learn that you have NASH and it’s leading to Cirrhosis. WHAT?? How would I get Cirrhosis? I don’t drink that much I am not an alcoholic! You have Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. It’s a shame you didn’t catch this before the damage was done. We will monitor you closely but you are headed for a transplant.
Please do not be him, when the doctor tells you that you have Fatty liver disease pay attention and change your lifestyle before it’s too late.
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