Elevated GGT (liver test)

Hi Des,

   Mine was elevated when I was taking Methotrexate years ago. My rheumy still checks it every 3 months because of the other meds I take. I see that you are on plaq...I'm not sure if that might cause it or not. Maybe someone else will know. I do know that alot of meds can elevate liver enzymes in some people.

   I hope you get some answers soon. Stay on your doctor about this. Hang in there and let us know what you find out. Take care and your in my thoughts and prayers.

                                                           (((Hugs))) Babs

  

Des, I've had some elevated liver labs in the past, but not the one you are talking about . Hopefully you can get some answers from your doc about it when you have your next appointment. I agree with you that it's hard not to worry about anything that comes back abnormal, especially when it's dealing with one of your organs. I really hope it's nothing to worry about . Hang in there and take care

Hi Des,
I've got severe fatty liver and have elevated liver levels at times. there is something called NAFLD--non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The docs used to accuse everyone of being an alcoholic that had fatty liver, but now they know it can be caused by many things. Pre-diabetes--hyperinsulinemia or Metabolic syndrome x-- causes it from eating too many carbs. Also lyrica, NSAIDs and some of the other meds you are on can really hurt your liver. ALTs measure liver repair taking place, which then indicates damage, but I've often wondered what your liver levels look like if your liver is not repairing itself, it can still be being damaged. ALP is more of an indicator of serious liver disease and cancer. There IS TREATMENT FOR FATTY LIVER. Eliminating drugs hard on your liver, following a diabetic diet, losing weight, and some diabetes drugs like Metformin help your liver get rid of the fat. Most hepatologists don't know this so you need to push if this is your problem. Catching diabetes early can help. My guess would be a drug thing first, I'm not familiar with chlorzoxazone or protonix, but am with klonopin and take 1-2 regularly with no elevation. Plaquenil causes me no problems as it is primarily processed by kidneys. Taking drugs by patch or injection bypasses this part of the liver and for me doesn't cause the rise in levels, only pills and certain foods and obesity. You should get tested for autoimmune hepatitis and see a hepatologist if you can, not just a GI guy, but a real hepatologist, even just for one visit.

Here's what I got from labtestsonline
Elevated GGT levels indicate that something is going on with your liver but not specifically what. In general, the higher the level the greater the “insult” to your liver. Elevated levels may be due to liver disease, but they may also be due to congestive heart failure, alcohol consumption, and use of many prescription and non-prescription drugs including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), lipid-lowering drugs, antibiotics, histamine blockers (used to treat excess stomach acid production), antifungal agents, seizure control medications, antidepressants, and hormones such as testosterone. Oral contraceptives (birth control pills) and clofibrate can decrease GGT levels.
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Is there anything else I should know?
Even small amounts of alcohol within 24 hours of your GGT test may cause a temporary increase in the GGT. If this occurs, your doctor may want to repeat the test to verify that it is normal.

GGT levels fall after meals, so it is best to be tested when you have not eaten for at least 8 hours.

Smoking can also increase GGT.

Levels of GGT increase with age in women, but not in men, and are always somewhat higher in men than in women.

GGT is about twice as high in persons of African ancestry as in those of European ancestry.

Thanks hippi, ginny, Marji and Carol...

Thank you for all of the great information. I will look into it more. Looking at my tests again, I noticed that even though the ALT and AST were not out of range, they did double their numbers from the last time. I will ask my Neuro when I go back on 5/31 and I will also ask my rheumy when I see him in July. I am beginning to think more and more that its probably from the meds. So what do you do in that instance? Do you just live with the pain or let your liver fail? Tough decision. Is there any drug that I could take for the pain that would not do as much damage as the NSAIDs and Lyrica? These are questions, I need to write down and address with my docs.

Thanks again

Des--
I take Ultram for pain and can tolerate it because it mimics a narcotic and I can take narcotics because they are close to our body's own pain killers. I can't take complex molecules. A hepatologist explained to me that the liver is like a screen and if it is inflamed, swelled with fat, or scarred, it changes the size of the holes in the screen, either making medicine back up and be toxic or too much to pass through. You are right to be concerned about the doubling in normal range, my docs look at that too, when they look, for a steady climb. You might want to get your insulin tested to see if you might have that pre-diabetes thing that can cause fatty liver that alot of people have from being overweight or even just eating too many carbs. It made my liver levels skyrocket. There are dietary changes you can make and medicines like glucophage they give you. My blood sugar was always normal but my insulin very high and my cells were immune to it and I wasn't processing sugars well, prediabetes. Maybe you can get by on a lower dose and maybe upping another med that doesn't irritate your liver, if that is the cause. I take klonopin with no problem at a relatively low dose 2-5 mg. Another nerve medicine I was able to take occasionally was tizanidine, and I take the muscle relaxer soma so far so good, low doses on both. I rarely take the tizanadine, so I don't know about every day. It's strong. Also you might want to consider an ultrasound of the liver with the baby ultrasound machine thingy if you keep having problems. It can tell healthy tissue from fat, from scar, from infection pretty well and is not invasive. I hope you feel better and your docs listen to you and pay attention and that you can find a good solution. Liver problems are a drag and make you tired and have gi problems and you just don't need that on top of everything.

Sorry to hear about your fall, knees are bad too, have a habit of turning into water on the knee and junk. I hope you are ok. Tiger Balm helps my bruises alot, it's really strong camphor and it seems to help me for some reason. Yes, there is a specific blood test for insulin and docs do not regularly do it, though I don't know why since most of their patients are overweight and have bp problems and family hx of diabetes.

My bp started going up when I had hyperinsulinemia and has come down since I started taking glucophage. When you are "prediabetic" you can be "low blood sugar" or hypoglycemic--which docs usually call normal for some strange reason because it doesn't feel normal--and hyperglycemic or "high blood sugar", which they treat. I am both, depending on what I eat and when.

If you can afford it, you might want to invest in a blood sugar meter, you don't need a prescription and a lot of dieters get them, they aren't bad to have around. After you eat dinner, you do a test and see how the food affected you, and you can test first thing in the morning to see how low you are. You can see how much it jumps around--it should be consistent--mine is consistent 100--because your body should be adjusting.

Anyway, if your insulin is really high it usually means you are hypoglycemic at times and your cells may be immune to insulin, so your pancreas is burning out trying to make the enormous amount of insulin you need to try to process sugar, and sugar in the form of fat accumulates in your liver.

The doc can and should do a glucose tolerance test, which is the only TRUE way to see if you are diabetic, no matter what they say, research will confirm this. You have to fast and they give you this high glucose stuff, really sweet. My sugar shot up to 180 (normal range is 80-120) within an half hour of drinking it and I don't know how high it went. This from Miss Normal blood sugar.

I also think some people, people with AI disease?, are more sensitive to small changes in blood sugar. I feel best at 100, 80 or under and I get shakey and panicky --they kept telling me I had panic disorder. Over 120 and I can feel panicky too, or sleepy and not well. It depends. Anyway, caught early, this is a fixable preventable problem and you don't have to develop diabetes, though it seems a lot of people do anyway. I can tolerate sugar much better now that I don't eat it as much, my bp is always normal now and I don't have to take bp medicine and I've lost some weight and my liver should be getting better. Not a bad tradeoff.

Diabetes is one of those things like thyroid, it causes all kinds of problems that seem unrelated. It's an awful disease and I really learned to have so much sympathy for all the older people who have it because full blown it can really be a drag in so many ways. Its kind of my personal thing to try to get people to get checked for prediabetes, especially if they are overweight, because so many docs just see the blood pressure going up and put you on bp meds with doing a glucose tolerance test, and then if your sugar drops for some reason, your bp drops dangerously low and you can end up in the hospital, so its my soapbox.

I have shortness of breath and it's because I have asthma, also I don't know if you have allergies. Shortness of breath was also the key feature of my liver disease, especially climbing stairs, my old professors were passing me by and I was huffing and puffing, ready to pass out. I still am too short of breath to take a regular stress test, but I have asthma/chronic bronchitis/COPD due to scarring of my bronchial tubes probably from all the pneumonia I had and histamine problems from my liver and AI disease. I think the true origin of asthma is in the liver, if I remember correctly. I should look that up. Oh, if you take a pen with the cap on it and draw a line on your arm and it turns red, that's a sign your histamines are high. they do that to me a lot,theres even a name for that test, its a real test you can do yourself. BTW, antihistamines don't help most stuff usually because they only work on certain histamines.

Seeing the cardiologist is good and you shouldn't be afraid. I had some damage because I have those anticardiolipin antibodies and got some atrophy of one side of my heart but once I went on plaquinil and steroids and it healed up. It can heal up, even if you have some damage. I thought that was great. I was sure my heart was bad, but it was the one good thing! The heart seems to be able to take a lot. So don't worry, just go.

It's probably asthma from the liver stress (histamines). Have they done any pulmonology tests for asthma? Do you use an inhaler?

Sorry so long. I'm hoping it's something simple that maybe a med vacation and dietary change (maybe major though) will fix and I hope you feel better soon. Will pray and send good wishes your way.

Hi folks.  I do not know if this is the place, but my liver results showed a 48 AST..and 43 is normal.  My dr first said I was normal and then remembered that I drink wine.She told me I should absolutely cut out alcohol.  Now I did the fast correctly before the test and know I had too much wine..before it.  Do you think I need to cut it all out or just return to a glass?  Any ideas?  Also I am overweight so I am wondering if that is a factor.

Thanks Babs for your caring response.  I am being treated for high blood pressure and low thyroid.  Those are my only meds.  Plus I am overweight and have lost 30 pounds..but have 50-70 to lose.

You are right..but I am fighting giving up the wine..Of course it makes me realize that the addiction is strong.

How is your health?  I hope you are feeling well today.

Des, I take imuran in large part because it keeps my liver tests in the normal range. Within a 2 weeks of starting it my liver enzymes began dropping and were normal in less than 2 months. If I stop for any length of time they begin to rise again. Liver involvement is one of those super rare but extremely dangerous symptoms. I hope you get your liver enzyme oddness cleared up.