6 Signs Your Liver Might Be Failing
There are countless hoax health products and beverages that supposedly work to eliminate all signs of toxins from your body and tempt you to spend hundreds of dollars. Why do we think you need stop spending all that money? Because a medical professional would tell you to stop consuming these supposed health products because the human body is equipped with the most remarkable and super effective toxin remover, which is quite obviously our liver.
The liver performs various extremely essential functions for the human body. It filters the blood, creates hormones, makes compounds vital for food digestion and it also stores energy within the body. And these aren’t all of its duties, a liver is extremely important in order to stay fit and healthy. Now, many assume that if something has gone amiss with the functioning of the liver, it would be extremely noticeable. However, that is not the case.
Unlike various other organs and diseases, liver problems don’t exhibit themselves until they have worsened a great deal. For instance, as seen in the example of Hepatitis C, which is also known as the “silent epidemic”. Now, with any liver related disease be it fatty liver disease or hepatitis, by the time the symptoms will become to emerge, the Cirrhosis is likely to worsen beyond control.
For those of you who might be wondering what Cirrhosis is, it refers to a severe kind of liver deterioration that is caused by a long-term liver disease or injury that has gone unnoticed or unattended. You may as imagine cirrhosis as the arthritis for the liver, because once it decides to take up residence in your liver, things are about to get bad. Liver Cirrhosis increases the risk for liver cancer, and it may even worsen the situation to the extent that you may need a liver transplant.
Being overweight and obese is often linked with the onset of the fatty liver disease, and most other liver related ailments. Research has proved that around 25 million patients are infected with the fatty liver disease. Moreover, hepatitis and alcohol abuse have emerged as the prevalent causes of liver diseases.
How can one secure oneself against liver ailments and ensure one’s liver is protected and healthy? Well, the first step is to maintain a healthy and wholesome diets, give your body sufficient physical exertion and exercise to avoid obesity and of course, drink moderately and infrequently. It is also highly recommended that you conduct regular checkups and visits to the doctor to identify any liver ailments before they turn into severe diseases.
There are some extremely common symptoms linked with liver ailments, we have listed them all below for you to take a look. If you seem to be experiencing any of these in recurrence, get your doctor on speed-dial and rush to the hospital!
1. Stomach aches
Aches in your abdomen are a clear indication that your liver might be in trouble. Your stomach might feel sore, it could be swollen to touch or perhaps, the right upper part of your stomach is aching unbelievably. All these are sure and clear signs that something is amiss with your liver. You see, the liver takes us a great deal of your abdominal cavity, its wedge like exterior and fatty side covers up the right side of your abdomen. So if your liver has inflamed or gone sick, you are highly likely to feel an overpowering ache in your abdomen. If this ache is recurrent and continues to persist abnormally, you must consult the doctor and get proper medical attention.
2. Jaundice or Yellowy eyes & Skin
The yellow color that tends to fill up the eyes and skin when one has contracted jaundice appears when the human body starts breaking down the old blood cells and creates a yellow compound that is known as “bilirubin”.
Now, when your liver is healthy and functioning effectively, it will dispose away the bilirubin, but if your liver is ailing and sick, it will allow the bilirubin to increase within your blood stream. And eventually, as the levels of bilirubin in your blood keep rising, your skin and eyes begin to turn yellow and you contract jaundice. Furthermore, a dark colored urine and light excretion are also clear signs of jaundice and liver ailments.
3. Overwhelming pain in the joints
If you experience severe joint pain of the kind that is common in arthritis, along with recurrent fatigue, loss of hunger, vomiting and nausea, you are likely to have an ailing liver. The above mentioned symptoms are extremely typical of autoimmune hepatitis, a severe condition where the immune system wrongly damages the tissues and cells in your liver.
This disease tends to be more common among women, who disregard symptoms like fatigue and nausea every other day. So, if you’re been ignoring the signs for too long and fighting them away, now is the time you get yourself an appointment with a doctor!
4. Emergence of spots on the skin
Since your liver is responsible for cleansing and filtering your blood, in the instance it fails to perform this task optimally, your blood will remain impure and unclean. This can very well cause clotting and spots to emerge on the surface of the skin.
These clots tend to accumulate and increase into large blemishes, which look a great deal like spiders and asterisks. For this reason, these clots are referred to as “spider angiomas” and they mostly tend to emerge on the torso and chest. If and when you spot these crawling up your skin, get yourself professional medical attention at once.
5. A state of mental disorientation
When your liver is sick and it does not filter the blood properly, huge amounts of copper start accumulating in your blood stream and your brain. This creates a very disoriented and confused state of mind, very much similar to that of Alzheimer’s.
You begin forgetting events, numbers, incidents, and most commonly, stuff like where you kept the keys or your wallet. Such a state common occurs when you’ve reached the advanced stage of a liver ailment, so this won’t the first symptom you encounter, but one of the last stage symptoms that take place when the condition of your liver has really deteriorated.
6. Muscles begin to waste away
An ailing or sick liver can cause severe fluid imbalances within the human body, and these imbalances in turn cause your stomach to swell up and increase in size, along with swelling up your ankles, weakening your arms and legs by making them skinny and brittle.
This is referred to as muscle wasting and it can also occur around your temples and cheeks, leaving behind a hollowed in effect. This too is a last-stage symptom that you will encounter as your disease begins to worsen, and your liver deteriorates. You won’t notice this one in the early days, so please don’t try to link it up with regular muscle stiffness, obesity or weakness in the arms and legs.
So, now that we’re done with the 6 most common signs of detecting liver ailments, it is important to state that prevention is always better, healthier and a whole lot cheaper than cure.
In our routine lives, we usually tend to ignore symptoms and signs and delay visits to the hospital just to finish another project, meet another client or grab another beer with friends.
Remember, health is everything, for if your health starts to fail your world will begin to crumble. Prioritize your life and make sure your health comes first on your list!