Basic symptoms warning of liver diseases

The liver is one of the most important organs of the body with the main function of helping to eliminate toxic substances and protect the body from dangerous factors.

In addition, the liver also plays a role in preventing toxic substances from entering the body through the digestive tract, contributing to reducing the toxicity of toxic components and eliminating waste from the body.

Most liver diseases, in the early stages of the disease, have almost no obvious symptoms, so patients often have a subjective mentality and ignore the initial signs of the disease. When detected, the disease is often in a severe stage, can turn into cirrhosis, liver cancer is very difficult to treat, even has a high risk of death.

1. Warning signs

To minimize the risk of liver disease, you need to be aware of disease prevention. If you wait until the disease becomes severe before treating it, it will be difficult to recover. In particular, you need to pay attention to liver and gallbladder screening if you have basic symptoms of liver and gallbladder disease.

Vomit a lot

Impaired liver function leads to a decrease in the ability to filter toxins from the body. These substances can impair the function of the digestive system, causing the patient to always feel nauseous and vomit a lot. This is a warning symptom that the liver has serious problems. Therefore, when this symptom appears, the patient should go to a medical facility for examination.

Pain in the right hypochondrium

Poor liver function is manifested by pain in the right hypochondrium. The reason is that the right hypochondrium corresponds to the location of the liver, some liver diseases can cause changes in size, making the liver larger than normal and stimulating the liver capsule, thereby causing pain in the right hypochondrium.

Full stomach

Bloating is also a symptom of many digestive diseases. However, bloating caused by liver problems is often more dangerous.

If the cause is liver disease, the early stages often show symptoms of bloating, indigestion, loss of appetite combined with constipation or diarrhea. This condition can be caused by undigested fats or increased pressure on the blood vessels around the liver, leading to a slow absorption of fluid in the abdomen.

Skin rash and itching

Dry, itchy skin with lots of pimples can make you think of dermatological diseases and many other diseases. However, this condition is also a very typical manifestation of liver diseases. When the liver is impaired in function and detoxifies poorly, toxins can spread through the skin with symptoms of itching and pimples.

Swollen legs

Normally, water is held inside and outside the cells by pressures such as water pressure and colloid osmotic pressure of proteins. When the liver is affected in function, it can lead to a decrease in protein production in the blood. This leads to an imbalance in the pressure between the forces acting on the water, causing swelling in both legs.

Feeling tired all the time

Frequent fatigue is also a sign related to liver problems. Fatigue can be caused by liver disease because of the accumulation of endogenous or exogenous toxins, the liver's reduced ability to store glucose, so the body easily falls into a state of low blood sugar or a state of loss of appetite and eating less can also cause fatigue.

Sleep disorders

Insomnia can be an early sign of cirrhosis. Symptoms of insomnia may include poor sleep quality, waking up easily, difficulty falling asleep, or excessive daytime sleepiness. Typically, sleep disturbances result in less than 5 hours of sleep per night.

Changes in mood and personality

The liver is the organ responsible for detoxifying the body. When this organ is affected, toxins will accumulate in the blood. Over time, these substances will move into the brain and negatively affect nerve conduction, causing the patient to have mood and personality changes such as mood swings, decreased concentration, and possibly coma.

Have some liver disease

If you have a history of liver disease such as viral hepatitis or fatty liver, it shows that your liver is damaged.

Viral hepatitis: The three most important viruses that cause the disease are hepatitis A, B and C. When the virus enters the body, it will develop in the liver cells, causing liver cell damage. This is also the main cause of liver diseases such as acute viral hepatitis, cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Fatty liver: Is a benign liver condition characterized by increased fat in the liver. However, it can progress to cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Jaundice, yellow eyes

A warning sign of liver problems is jaundice. Jaundice is caused by the liver not being able to metabolize and excrete a bile pigment called bilirubin.

When liver function is normal, the amount of free bilirubin in the blood will return to the liver, be converted by the liver into a water-soluble conjugated form and excreted through the kidneys and partly through the feces. When liver function is impaired, the excess amount of free bilirubin in the blood is not converted and cannot be excreted, it seeps into the fatty tissue under the skin, causing jaundice and yellow eyes.

Bruises under the skin

For people with liver disease, even light collisions can easily cause bruising under the skin. The cause of this symptom is that the blood clotting process is slower when the liver has problems, so it slows down or stops producing blood clotting proteins. This is also one of the common signs of liver disease and is easily recognizable with the naked eye. Therefore, people need to pay attention when they see this condition appear frequently.

Darker urine

Darker urine can be caused by things like diet, certain medications, or simply not drinking enough water.

If you suddenly notice that your urine is much darker than usual and especially if you have white stools, this could be a sign of liver problems.

Liver disease increases the amount of bilirubin in the blood in a conjugated form, which is excreted through the kidneys, causing dark urine. This is often a clear sign of acute liver disease, so early examination and treatment is needed.

Abnormal change in stool color

The color of your stool is due to bile pigments. If your stool is pale, it is usually due to a bile duct blockage, which makes it difficult for bile to get down to the digestive tract. If your stool is black like coffee grounds, it may be due to progressive liver disease causing gastrointestinal bleeding.

Spider angiomas

Spider angiomas are common in people with chronic liver disease, especially those with cirrhosis due to alcoholism. The main cause of this condition is impaired liver function, which leads to high estrogen levels in the blood (reduced half-life). This leads to vasodilation, blood stasis in the large blood vessels, making the blood vessels visible under the skin.

On the patient's skin, there may appear a raised red spot in the center, surrounded by rays that point out like spider legs and become red and do not disappear when pressed.

These lesions are commonly found on the face, neck, shoulders, chest, arms, backs of the hands, mucous membranes of the lips and nose and vary in size.

Red palms

Red palms are also known as the red palm sign. This is a warning sign of liver disease, caused by abnormally high hormone levels in the blood. According to some studies, about 1/4 of people with cirrhosis have this sign.

Bleeding gums

The liver is one of the organs that produces blood clotting factors. When this organ's function is reduced, blood clotting factors are not fully produced, affecting the body's ability to clot, causing bleeding gums.

Drink a lot of alcohol and beer

Alcohol and beer contain many substances that are harmful to the liver. If you consume a large amount of alcoholic beverages, it will cause negative effects on liver function. Because the symptoms of alcoholic liver disease do not appear in the early stages, if you drink a lot of alcohol, the possibility of your liver having problems is very high.

2. Is liver disease contagious?

Liver diseases are often caused by many factors, so there are contagious and non-contagious liver diseases.

Most liver diseases such as cirrhosis, liver cancer, fatty liver or alcoholic hepatitis are not contagious.

Hepatitis A, B and C viral liver diseases can be transmitted through blood, sexual contact and from mother to child.

3. Prevent liver disease

Although it is not possible to prevent all causes of liver disease, you can completely follow the following suggestions to reduce the risk of liver disease:

Limit alcohol intake: drink no more than 1 glass/day for women and 2 glasses/day for men.

Safe sex: know your partner's medical history, use condoms during sex.

Get tattoos, piercings, and manicures in safe places with properly sanitized equipment.

Get vaccinated against hepatitis as directed.

Use medication as directed by your doctor, avoid using medication with alcohol.

Build a suitable lifestyle, keep weight at a reasonable level.

Regularly provide foods that are good for the liver such as fruits, beans, fish and tea.

Regular health checkups.