LiveWorld Transcripts

Houston Chronicle presents

Dr. Woods
"Ask the Doctor": Liver Disease

January 25, 2000

The Houston Chronicle presents "Ask the Doctor" with Dr. Woods who discusses health issues involving liver disease, transplants, biopsies, hepatitis, and alcohol related diseases.

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HoustonChronicle: Welcome to Ask the Doctor! The purpose of the Ask The Doctor chats are to provide general information and is in no way intended to be construed as medical advice for any visitors' specific disease or condition. The intent is to increase a participant's knowledge about a general disease or condition. For treatment of your specific condition please see your personal physician. This forum is not intended to be used in emergency situations. If you are uncertain of the urgency of your problem or condition, contact your personal physician or the nearest hospital for assistance. HoustonChronicle.com, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital - Houston, and the Talk City Network are proud to present our special guest for today, Dr. Woods of the Texas Liver Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. Welcome, Dr. Woods!

Dr Woods: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here!

Steve1751: I smoke. Does it affect my liver?

Dr Woods: There is no direct evidence that nicotine or other harmful things in the tobacco smoke have a harmful effect to the liver. Certainly, there are enough other harmful effects of cigarette smoking that the participant should consider giving up the habit.

Ilamae25: Explain about severe muscle spasms around the liver, when lifting, stretching, etc.

Dr Woods: The liver itself is largely protected by the ribcage. The lower part of the liver is protected by the muscles of the abdominal wall. When you are lifting or stretching, it is unlikely that there is any significant movement of the liver and so what the participant is describing sounds more like a musculo-skeleto problem rather than something related to the liver. Pain related to the liver can be the result of liver enlargement and stretching of the capsule around the liver, but the liver itself rarely moves sufficiently during activity to cause pain.

Dmrock1: Recently my mother was hospitalized with pneumonia. She was told her liver enzymes were high. She had a liver scan that came back okay. What could have caused this?

Dr Woods: Any general illness, from the flu to a pneumonia, can cause many of the organs in the body to have some dysfunction while the infection is active. Sometimes the same virus which can cause the flu or pneumonia may actually also affect the liver. If the elevation of the liver tests returns to normal after the illness is over it probably means that the liver was being affected by the illness itself. However, it could also indicate that in times of stress that the liver is not able to handle the stress as well as a normal liver and I believe it would be important to make absolutely sure that the participant's mother does not have some form of underlying liver disease that has only come to light based on the stress of the illness that the participant's mother had. While a liver scan may be okay, I believe it would be important to get an additional set of liver function tests to insure that there is no underlying liver disease.

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