You may feel sick and dizzy, have stomach pain, vomit, or lose weight. You may have swelling in your abdomen. Your eyes or skin may turn yellow (this is called jaundice [say: JAWN-dis]), and your skin may itch. Cirrhosis also can affect your brain.
These can include jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), sudden weight loss, pain where the liver is located, nausea, weakness, itchy skin, and fatigue. As cirrhosis progresses, patients may suffer confusion, dizziness, muscle cramps, nosebleeds, hair loss, and loss of muscle mass.
Most people with liver disease report abdominal pain. Pain in your liver itself can feel like a dull throbbing pain or a stabbing sensation in your right upper abdomen just under your ribs.
Acute liver failure can happen in as little as 48 hours. It's important to seek medical treatment at the first signs of trouble. These signs may include fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, and discomfort in your right side, just below your ribs.
Serum albumin test.
This test is used to measure the level of albumin (a protein in the blood) and may be useful in the diagnosis of liver disease. Low levels of albumin may indicate the liver is not functioning properly.
Stage 1: Inflammation
In the early stages of liver disease, the liver will become swollen or inflamed as the body's natural response to injury. Liver inflammation, or hepatitis, can also occur when there are more toxins in the blood than the liver is able to manage. The earlier the diagnosis, the better.
The CDC note that the symptoms of acute disease can occur anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months after exposure. The symptoms of chronic hepatitis can take decades to show up.
A liver blood test measures the levels of various things in your blood, like proteins, liver enzymes, and bilirubin. This can help check the health of your liver and for signs of inflammation or damage.
Liver failure can affect many of your body's organs. Acute liver failure can cause such complications as infection, electrolyte deficiencies and bleeding. Without treatment, both acute and chronic liver failure may eventually result in death.
It can result from something as simple as motion sickness — the queasy feeling that you get on hairpin roads and roller coasters. Or it can be caused by an inner ear disturbance, infection, reduced blood flow due to blocked arteries or heart disease, medication side effects, anxiety, or another condition.
If the liver fails due to alcohol misuse or hepatitis, ammonia can accumulate in the bloodstream and eventually end up in the brain. – When this happens, patients become confused and the brain becomes swollen. Patients can change personality and become irritable and aggressive.
Life Expectancy With Fatty Liver Diseases
People stay healthy despite suffering from the disease following a normal routine. The life expectancy with fatty liver disease decreases from 3 to 4 years because such patients develop other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular or diabetes.
It takes upwards of ten years for alcohol-related liver disease to progress from fatty liver through fibrosis to cirrhosis to acute on chronic liver failure. This process is silent and symptom free and can easily be missed in primary care, usually presenting with advanced cirrhosis.
Barring complications, the liver can repair itself completely and, within a month, the patient will show no signs of damage. However, sometimes the liver gets overwhelmed and can't repair itself completely, especially if it's still under attack from a virus, drug, or alcohol.
Blood tests
But liver function tests can be normal at many stages of liver disease. Blood tests can also detect if you have low levels of certain substances, such as a protein called serum albumin, which is made by the liver. A low level of serum albumin suggests your liver is not functioning properly.
A series of special blood tests can often determine whether or not the liver is functioning properly. These tests can also distinguish between acute and chronic liver disorders and between hepatitis and cholestasis.
Gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase test: This test measures the level of gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (an enzyme that is produced in the liver, pancreas, and biliary tract). This test is often performed to assess liver function, to provide information about liver diseases, and to detect alcohol ingestion.
When symptoms do occur, they may first include fatigue; weakness and weight loss; nausea; bruising or bleeding easily; swelling in your legs, feet or ankles; itchy skin; redness on the palms of your hands; and spider-like blood vessels on your skin.
Blood tests.
Blood tests are done to determine how well your liver works. A prothrombin time test measures how long it takes your blood to clot. With acute liver failure, blood doesn't clot as quickly as it should.
The lowdown. Liver disease can have many negative effects on bodily functions, including bowel movements. The best way to assist your bowel movements is to focus on lifestyle changes that improve liver function. These include exercise, weight loss, and minimizing alcohol consumption, among others.