Aug
18
2010
can you recover from liver failure caused by alcoholism?
Posted by: Alan in alcoholism treatment, tags: Alcoholism, caused, failure, From, liver, Recover
Question by Leaf: can you recover from liver failure caused by alcoholism?
do you need like a new liver or seomthing? or surgery or anything?
Best answer:
Answer by Stephen
If its acute and you stop drinking the liver can recover if its chronic with cirrohis then liver transplant is only option but to even be considered for transplant you have to be off ALL alcohol for a specifid period of time
What do you think? Answer below!
Entries (RSS)
August 18th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
When the cells of the liver become damaged, the immune system of the body responds to this damage and causes inflammation to develop inside the liver. This will cause the liver to enlarge in size. If it is caused by alcohol, stopping the alcohol AND having treatment for the inflammation can cause the problem to reverse.
However, if the alcohol is continued and inflammation is still there… it will advance to where the liver cells start to die off. This is then known as liver failure. The cells, of the liver, are what do the over 500 plus functions to keep the body healthy. When the cells die off, and continue to die off, the less functions can be done and this is known as liver failure. So, the cells dying off becomes a progressive disease. Why? because scar tissue forms inside the liver that blocks the flow of blood through the liver on its way back to the heart and also blocks the flow of blood to the other liver cells, so they lack the oxygen and nourishment they need to live and they continue to die off. This is known, then, as Cirrhosis of the liver and it is not reversible…The doctors can only try to prevent it from progressing ast.
So, if treated early on, yes it is possible to recover. It not, and the cells die off, stopping the alcohol may not reverse the disease that occurs..but it definitely will slow down the progression of it, that you may live alot longer and possibly avoid a liver transplant.
Hope this information has been of some help to you.