Can The Liver Repair Itself After Years Of Drinking?

Yes! You can heal your liver

The liver is one of the most complex organs in the body, second only to the brain. Like the brain, the liver is very resilient and is highly regenerative. In other words, you can very easily heal your liver. Rather, the liver can find a way to make itself better. Even if more than 50% of the liver sustains a damage, it can regenerate itself completely.

This is the reason why you can easily donate part of your liver and still have both your own liver and the part that you donated grow to its near full size, regaining its full bodily function.

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However, there are some instances when you can cause very grave damage to the liver that liver cells die. This can happen every time your liver is made to filter toxic substances such as drugs or alcohol, or other chemicals; or when it becomes infected. Your liver can also get damaged from being overweight. If this happens frequently, the liver will lose some of its ability to regenerate.

The liver will need a rest from toxic substances or from an infection so that new liver cells can develop. The liver of persons who abuse alcohol and drugs are especially vulnerable; but not entirely hopeless. Find a luxury drug and alcohol addiction treatment center that will help your mind and body, including your liver, to regenerate.

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After Sobering Up, Have Your Liver Checked

Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis are included in the top 10 list of deadliest diseases in the US, as they accounted for 36,427 deaths in 2013, according to data.

Sadly, the taking care of the liver is not taken seriously by many people. Probably because symptoms don’t manifest themselves until the liver is really sick and damaged.

When a person recovers from addiction from primarily alcohol and other types of harmful substances, the liver suddenly becomes important.

Of course, after abusing it for so long, the liver usually has some type of disease at this point. The good news is that the liver can bounce back with some much needed TLC:

•      Drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated.
•      Eat a liver-friendly diet with less saturated fat and sugar, salt; plus, more fiber, fatty fish, nuts, fresh fruits (blueberries, cranberries, grapes, grapefruit) and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, brussels sprouts, and mustard greens).
•      Exercise regularly.
•      Avoid toxins, alcohol, and smoking.
•      Do not use illegal drugs and follow the correct dosage for prescription drugs.
•      See a doctor if you come in contact with another person’s blood for some reason. Also, don’t share personal hygiene items that may have tiny amounts of another person’s blood or other body fluids on them like nail clippers, razors, and toothbrushes.

Get vaccinated for hepatitis A and hepatitis B virus, as well as hepatitis C when it becomes available.

You Take Care of the Liver, Then the Liver Takes Care of You

The liver is the human’s largest internal organ. It can be found on the right side of your body just under your rib cage.

Among its hundreds of functions, it is best known for removing toxins from the body and for fighting infections.

The liver is also responsible for breaking down food to turn it into energy; for storing iron, vitamins and other essential nutrients, for controlling your levels of amino acids, blood sugar, cholesterol, and glucose in the blood; for helping your blood clot; for manufacturing, breaking down and controlling sex hormones and other hormones; and for manufacturing bile, which is the yellowish brown or dark green fluid that vertebrates use to help digestion of lipids in the small intestine.

With all these important functions, it is easy to see that having an unhealthy liver would not bode well for a person’s body. It would create problems with the digestive system, the cardiovascular system, circulatory system, and the metabolic system.

And though it’s easy to be overwhelmed and scared, Ray Chung, MD, director of the liver transplant program at Massachusetts General Hospital, says that caring for your liver is actually more about “avoiding what’s worse, than it is about eating or drinking things that are particularly nourishing to the liver.”

When You Abuse Alcohol, the Liver Suffers

Liver damage can actually be passed on genetically. However, it is drinking alcoholic drinks frequently and in excessive amounts that is the usual cause of the most damage to the liver.

Drinking alcohol in excess can cause impaired judgment. Minor problems resulting from this may range from loss of personal possessions, damage to property, injuring self or others, being belligerent or rude, unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and alcohol poisoning.

However, it is the long-term effects of alcohol on your health that should cause alarm and hopefully a change in your habits. The Liver Foundation has a very comprehensive and scary list, chief among the alcohol-induced liver diseases are fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis.

Aside from this, alcohol abuse can also harm your heart, bowels, breast, and pancreas.

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Healing the Liver

As easy as your liver can be damaged by alcohol, healing from these serious diseases takes a longer time. You will need professional care, and discipline to make you take your prescriptions religiously, and avoid falling back into your bad habits.

Cirrhosis, fatty liver, and alcoholic hepatitis are serious diseases and have to be met with serious resolve. What’s worse, a patient may have only one of the three alcohol-induced conditions or a combination of two or three of them. In fact, these three diseases are known to come one after the other. First is fatty liver, then alcoholic hepatitis, and then cirrhosis which may progress to alcoholic cirrhosis, which is considered worst of them all and can become fatal. However, many alcoholics also get cirrhosis without first having the two other liver diseases.

When It Comes to Healing Your Liver, It’s not that Simple

Being the most regenerative organ, healing from a liver disease is highly probable. You need to drastically reduce your alcohol intake or, in the really bad cases, refrain from imbibing alcohol altogether.

The downside is that a damaged liver is not easily detected until it’s too late. In North America, alcohol-related cirrhosis accounts for 44 percent of all cirrhosis deaths.

So, if you or a loved one regularly overindulge in alcohol, hopefully, this serves as a wake-up call.

Want more information about how Chapters Capistrano can help? Feel free to call 949-276-2886 and one of our addiction specialists will help get the information and help you need.