Alcoholic Hepatitis: Stages, Signs, Cutting Out Alcohol

Once you have been diagnosed your treatment plan will depend on which stage of alcohol-related liver disease you have. It’s really important that you are referred to a liver specialist if you have one of the more serious forms of liver damage. These conditions are more difficult to treat and need specialist care. There are several stages of alcohol-related liver disease. Cirrhosis, the most serious stage of liver disease, usually takes many years to develop.

Oxidative damage

Alcohol recovery programs are essential for those who can’t quit, including faith-based 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or science-based programs like SMART Recovery. Make an appointment with your healthcare professional if you have any lasting symptoms that worry you. Seek medical help right away if you have belly pain that is so bad that you can’t stay still. Getting a professional intervention early on is a person’s best chance of reversing the strain alcohol puts on the liver.

• Women may require only 20 to 30 g of alcohol/day to be at risk—half or less than the amount for men (7, 8).
• It can also lead to the production of abnormal levels of fats, which are stored in the liver.
• Often, by the time doctors detect the damage, it is irreversible.
• Although the damage caused by cirrhosis is not reversible, treatment can slow the progression of the disease, alleviate symptoms, and prevent complications.
• But it can develop very suddenly and severely, even after you’ve stopped drinking.
• However, some people get NAFLD even if they do not have any risk factors.

What are the risk factors for alcohol-related liver disease?

Among other problems, this makes fat build up in your liver. If you stop drinking alcohol completely for a period of time (months or years) your liver can recover. By the time a person is in the end stages of alcoholism, there can be no denying that drinking has taken over their life and damaged their health. symptoms of alcoholic liver disease Recovery will not be easy at this point, but it will be worth the work.

What symptoms are associated with alcoholic liver cirrhosis?

If detected and managed at an early stage, it’s possible to stop NAFLD getting worse and reduce the amount of fat in your liver. Once you’ve had a transplant you’ll need lifelong treatment with medication to control your immune system. This is managed by your transplant specialist or hepatologist. Click on an image to read their story, or share your own to help us raise awareness of alcohol-related liver disease. Quitting alcohol is rarely easy if you have been drinking heavily for years.

Alcoholic cirrhosis

Early detection is the best chance of stopping the damage before the organ stops functioning completely. A person suffering from alcohol-related cirrhosis who continues to drink has less than a 50 percent chance of living for five more years. It may start with fatty liver disease, progressing to alcohol-related hepatitis, and then to alcohol-related cirrhosis. But you could develop alcohol-related cirrhosis without ever having alcohol-related hepatitis. The liver removes toxins from the blood, breaks down proteins, and creates bile.

Non-Alcoholic Liver Damage

• Liver damage causes inflammation and fluid buildup in the abdomen, leading to discomfort or bloating.
• Participation in an alcohol recovery program may be necessary for alcohol-dependent individuals and finally in advanced cases of alcoholic cirrhosis, a liver transplant may be necessary.
• Consuming a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins can help support liver health and reduce the risk of damage caused by excessive alcohol intake.
• Binge drinking can also cause acute (sudden) alcoholic hepatitis, a rapid inflammation of the liver, which can be life-threatening.
• But you could develop alcohol-related cirrhosis without ever having alcohol-related hepatitis.
• When seeking answers, people often look to experts for clear and accurate information.

Hepatitis is a general term for swelling and inflammation of the liver from any cause. Corticosteroids are used to treat severe alcoholic hepatitis by decreasing inflammation in the liver. Other medications, such as Pentoxil (pentoxifylline), may also be used. Fatty liver disease can often be reversed by stopping drinking alcohol.

But there’s a limit, as healthcare providers generally consider liver cirrhosis Twelve-step program to be irreversible. At this point, the extent of the damage to the liver is too much to recover from. Treatments and medications may help slow the damage and liver failure, with liver transplants reserved for end-stage liver disease, in which the organ stops working. As people’s susceptibility to alcoholic liver disease varies, it’s impossible to determine how much drinking will lead to hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver failure, and death. Population-level studies have found the risk of liver disease increases markedly for men for drink more than 40g of ethanol per day and for women who consume more than 20g per day.

Risk Factors for Alcohol-Related Liver Disease

There are often no notable symptoms in the early stages of alcohol-related liver disease. If you do have symptoms, they may include pain or discomfort in the upper right side of your abdomen, fatigue, or unexplained weight loss. Signs and symptoms of cirrhosis depend on how advanced it is. You might not have symptoms at all early on, or you might only have vague symptoms that resemble many other conditions.

Risk factors for alcohol-related liver disease

Evidence-based treatment can lead to positive health outcomes.9 One may consider reaching out to their doctor in order to determine their medical needs. Additionally, one may also search the SAMHSA treatment locator to find local treatment centers. If abnormalities suggest alcohol-related liver disease, screening tests for other treatable forms of liver disease, especially viral hepatitis, should be performed. Thrombocytopenia can result from the direct toxic effects of alcohol on bone marrow or from splenomegaly, which accompanies portal hypertension. Neutrophilic leukocytosis may result from alcoholic hepatitis, although coexisting infection (particularly pneumonia and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis) should also be suspected.