http://livingwithliverdisea.grou.ps/wiki/item/life-expectancy-with-cirrhosis
Membaca artikel ini sungguh membesarkan hati bagi para penyandang sirosis hati, apalagi setelah berkutat dengan harapan hidup yang menipis dengan bayang-bayang transplantasi
"Para penyandang sirosis mampu bertahan selama bertahun-tahun. Jika penyakit ini dikelola dan hati diberi nutrisi penting yang dibutuhkannya, maka (sama seperti orang lain) banyak penyandang sirosis akhirnya meninggal karena sebab lain yang tidak terkait dengan penyakit hati, bertahun-tahun ke depan!
Jadi, jangan putus asa! Penyakit ini dapat dijalani (dengan selamat) dan banyak dari kita tidak akan pernah harus dekat-dekat meja transplantasi."
:)
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Life Expectancy with Cirrhosis.
Written by Craig, January 2012.
To be diagnosed with cirrhosis is a truly awful experience. Many people who go through this have no idea what cirrhosis is, or maybe they’ve heard of it but are unsure what it actually means. Virtually no one is going to know what to expect, what the disease entails and what is going to happen to them.
After the initial fall-out and the shock wave of being told End Stage Cirrhosis is untreatable and irrecoverable, certain questions are bound to spring to mind, foremost probably being, “How long have I got to live”?
When I look at the pages that visitors (and members) of this site look at, the most common query that lands people on this site is to do with cirrhosis life expectancy. I still remember how I felt when I was told about my disease and it took quite some time before I came to accept the fact that I may not survive it.
I was diagnosed just over three years ago and in that time I have gained a lot of experience and knowledge about the disease, I have also been privileged to get to know many, many people who suffer from this disease.
The people I know and have known have become ill in a whole variety of ways that one can become ill with cirrhosis. The majority though have come from the Hepatitis or Alcohol routes though there are increasingly many people coming to this site with fatty liver disease.
The good news if there is any, is that in the last three years I have only known one person who died from cirrhosis within the first few weeks after diagnosis. The majority of people I have got to know are still alive, some have had a transplant, but most are still living, still managing and still coping with the disease.
Clearly early diagnosis is crucial but even when the disease is advanced stabilization and a degree of recovery is still absolutely possible. Cirrhosis can be managed.
So, in trying to answer the question about “How long have I got”?, certain factors have to be taken into consideration. If alcohol is the main cause, then the alcohol must stop! For people who drink and succumb to cirrhosis, the symptoms of the disease will almost certainly get worse for a few weeks after ceasing alcohol. However, take it out six months and things will as equally almost certainly start getting better!
The second factor which seems to affect cirrhosis however caused, is nutrition. It can be argued that cirrhosis is a disease of malnutrition. For those who have damaged their liver due to alcohol, almost all are nutritionally deficient because alcohol has become their food of choice. Healthy eating and alcoholism don’t go well together and indeed, one of the side effects of alcohol is to leech to body of the vital nutrition and vitamins it needs to survive.
For those who succumb to the disease through virus or other reasons, the key to keeping the disease at bay is nutrition once again. People with hepatitis can improve their liver function.
Doctors don’t treat cirrhosis. Doctors treat symptoms of cirrhosis. Nothing a doctor will give you in terms of drugs is designed or meant to encourage the liver to recover. This is why they are correct in saying the disease is untreatable. They have no treatment.
However, as has been shown time after time by people I know and many others I don’t, the liver is capable of amazing feats of recovery if given the right conditions. Everyone I know who has made enormous strides in getting their disease under some sort of control have done so through ensuring their bodies are fed the right vitamins, minerals and diet which feeds their liver the nutrition it needs to maintain or even improve its function.
Vitamins C and B-Complex have show to have an enormous impact on cirrhosis and the ability for people to survive it. These vitamins are both safe to take and inexpensive. C and B vitamins are water soluble and any excess is dispelled in urine. I have never heard of a case of anyone overdosing on these vitamins.
People with cirrhosis can and do survive for many, many years. If the disease is managed and the liver is fed the vital nutrients it needs many people with cirrhosis will eventually die of other causes not associated with liver disease many years down the line!
So, don’t despair!!! This disease can be survived and many of us will never ever have to go anywhere near a transplant table.
Craig
Panama City Beach
January 2012
