Hi..

I have always been overweight, but I do exercise a few times a month and stay relatively active doing house projects, labor work for my dad etc. I only drink like 2 times a year and I do not smoke, I do not even have a beer just for dinner. Just never felt the need. I do have back problems and have been taking pain killers on and off when my back goes out, but I always stuck to exactly what was prescribed and never went over 3000mg of tylenol a day. I was always diligent about that.

Anyways, after all this jaundice stuff they at first thought I had Hep A, but the test came back negative. They did a CT and it showed signficant cirrhosis. I feel fine, just jaundice, no belly pain, no swelling nothing. My original blood work showed a very high MELD score, he did not give me the number, but after a week it had dropped below a 15. He said he wanted to see if losing weight would help. I found the Hep doctor I saw to be extremely rude, insensitive and almost as if he did not want to be there.  I did complain to the office, he called me a few days later apologized and gave me good news that my MELD had reduced.

The Jaundice was almost totally gone but then I got a head cold on Sunday night. I was sick for about 4 days, everyone in my house got it first then I finally got it. The jaundice is back, but not horrible. I think between being sick and tired it brought it on.

I am scared a little bit, more nervous. My wife is very emotional, I have talked to her, but she cries so it is hard to have be able to talk to anyone. I have not told my parents yet, waiting until my next visit with the new doctor I see next Friday. Originally they wanted me to go to the University of Minnesota to see a transplant surgeon, but he said to hold off since there was a huge reduction in my MELD.

I have a liver biopsy scheduled for Dec. 10th, it was scheduled for this week but with the cough they did not want me to come in because I have to hold my breath and I could not do that.

I have made signficiant changes over the past 2 months. I work out 6 days a week for at least an hour and I joined weight watchers. I have went from 389lbs down to 350lbs. My goal is to get down to 275, I know I need to lose weight if I ever want to be considered for a transplant. Being overweight was my fault, I have tried to lose weight but it was always hard so many temptations out there. Plus I played college football and I needed to be 310 to 330lbs as I was an offensive lineman. So i was raised to be big and no one ever said anything different to me.

Anyways, I will come back here. I just need to find someplace where I can talk openly without holding back for fear that I will make someone cry, seeing as I have to be the strong one.

Hopefully things will get better as I lose more weight, but who knows.

I also forgot to mention that when i joined Weight Watchers 2 months ago I started doing low fat with that as well. Luckily my wife is very supportive when it comes to food, so everything she makes or buys now she is very careful to keep it to the lowest amount of fat as possible. We also eliminated red meat.

Unfortunately we had to find this stuff out ourself, as the 1st Hep doctor we saw was no help. He just referred me for tests and kept checking his phone while he was telling me this stuff.

I had an endoscopy last week, the doctor said there is nothing even remotely close to looking like a bulging varici, not sure how to spell that. He said that is great news, only thing was I had 2 3mm ulcers which was caused by H-Pylori yet again.

I just need somewhere to talk, especially until she is ready to accept this. I hope to get some good news next week, but who knows. My bilirubin did lower down to a 7, but I have read it could take a year to possibly never before this clears up.

Post Edited (SyXx) : 11/23/2012 11:32:48 AM (GMT-7)