Is this Terry’s nails

Posted , 6 users are following.

Hi, Just wondering if there’s any advice out there please. I’m an extremely worried. I abused alcohol for many years of binge drinking for about 15 years. I’m now 37. It didn’t help that I was in an abusive relationship for 10 years and I used to mask the pain on sometimes a daily or weekly basis mainly drinking wine and sometimes vodka to deal with my PTSD.

I’m so worried about my liver. I currently have a gallstone that’s 15mm in diameter and having that taken out in a few weeks. They did an abdominal ultrasound on my gall bladder, liver, spleen etc a few months ago and said everything was fine apart from gallstone. I’ve had an endoscopy also and there is a small amount of inflammation on my stomach lining but not major. Colonoscopy was ok too.

I get itchy skin bouts from time to time but these ease away, my stools are occasionally pale but mainly yellow. I’m over weight but am taking measures to address this.

I went to the docs the other day who did a referral to have my gall bladder removed but I told her about my concerns regarding my liver and she said the ultrasound would have picked it up. My past blood tests have been normal and am awaiting some more results from this over next few days. She examined where my liver was and said it didn’t feel enlarged. I have been getting loads of tenderness on my diagphram though for many months. I’ve read that ultrasound and bloods don’t always pick up cirrhosis and keep thinking I have it with the amount of alcohol I’ve had over the years.

I’m not sleeping thinking I have this and the doctors said I don’t need any more tests.

They won’t do a fibroscan and assured me if I had liver damage it would have been picked up on tests. I can’t see how I can’t have liver damage with the amount I had drank over the years. A typical binge was around 100 units. I could cry thinking about it and have was in a bad place for years. I’ve taken a vow never to drink again. 

I’ve also think I have a Terry’s nail but unsure. 

Please advise! 

0 likes, 6 replies

6 Replies

  • Posted

    I know a lot of people who have drunk for longer and not had any liver damage. They repair themselves pretty well and not drinking will help you. The bloods would show something even if your liver was struggling a bit. Add that to the ultrasound being okay and I can’t see how you can have cirrhosis.
  • Posted

    If you make an elastography this will show to you if you have cirrhosis or not .This examination will give to you an indicator which is called ShearWave and it is measured in Kilo Pascal. If this indicator is greater than 16 then you might start having cirrhosis.
  • Posted

    Usually SGOT/AST, SGPT/ALT and γ-GT (transaminaces) should be high but is not always so. If you do only the scan dont show it so you have to do both ,scan and elastography. That was done at least in my case.
  • Posted

    ask them for a ct scan, it can see what is going on far better than an ultrsound.

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