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Liver disease recovery?
Hi all,
I'm new here and am dealing with vitamin A induced liver disease. Has anyone made a recovery? How long did it take?
I am small framed and have a high metabolism, tend to run hyperthyroid (yes, hyper), so I burn through calories quickly. I've had classic symptoms like red, itchy eyes, hair loss, and what I now believe was portal hypertension based on aligning symptoms.
I've been low, but not zero A, for about 6 weeks. Some things have improved, but now I feel like I'm dealing with some anemia like symptoms.
If you've had any liver disease success with this, I'd love to hear from you. From the scientific literature I read, the fatty liver stage is reversible, but perhaps not the cirrhosis (though there are plenty of accounts of folks reversing alcohol or drug induced cirrhosis with proper diet, exercise, etc. I realize that the mechanism for the vitamin A fatty liver is different than alcoholic or nonalcoholic fatty liver, because of where the fatty deposits develop in the cells.)
Thanks all.
Hello Allyson, and welcome!
I have hesitated to reply to your question here, in the hopes that others might reply as well. However, here goes -- TBH I don't think anyone here, with the possible exception of Grant Genereux, believes they have overcome their Vitamin A toxicity with respect to the liver. I believe that is the reason we are all still here!
Many of us (myself included) have found a supportive community at Dr. Garrett Smith's "Love Your Liver" site/program (there is a fee but well worth it!). Many, like you, are just starting the program; others, like me, have been working with Dr. Smith since before he (through Grant) uncovered the true nature of "vitamin" A. So you may want to post there as well.
I am very curious to know, how did you discover that your liver disease was vitamin A induced? Also, how are you aware of where the fatty liver deposits are in the various liver conditions?
Strangely, I have never actually thought my liver was suffering. But hub's seems to be.
I have some of the same issues as you, like high caloric need dry eyes and sparse hair. These symptoms are lessening but not gone. My issues seem to often be in the department of "autoimmune", lupus-like. My biggest change has been in the area of not feeling "poisoned" all the time, with a lessening of things like nausea and headaches.
His diet is especially "slow boat" LOL. But I want to say his liver area looks slightly less swollen. No big difference yet. I should try to delve into whatever tests he has had at the docs lately to see if any liver numbers have improved.
One of the biggest lifestyle differences between hubs and me is that I'm physically active out doors and he is more sedentary and works indoors. Another big difference is that I do dairy such as small amounts of raw milk and I like cheese, and hubs does none.
My disease has been pieced together through symptoms and vascular ultrasound. I suspect that since I am small framed, I can feel much more of what is going on internally than most, and this is what alarmed me. Right upper quadrant pain, right shoulder pain, strange enlarged veins in my hands and arms, etc. It took a lot of digging, but my vitamin E was low and the vascular ultrasound revealed a "possible enlarged portal vein". When I go super low A, all these symptoms come back and more. Within a week or so of adding a little A back, the anemia cleared. I suspect that there's a bile flow issue. TUDCA has helped, as well as the vitamin E my doctor recommended.
Lil chick, I'm glad to hear that your symptoms have improved. I will stay the course.
I may also check out Garrett Smith's site and liver program. I already do a lot of liver healthy things he suggests, exercise, some sauna, some binders (mostly activated charcoal away from meals), NAC, and good fiber.
Thanks for the replies. Please keep up the conversation here.
lol "good fiber" sounds like the epitome of an oxymoron to me. Even herbivores that subsist on fiber usually choose the least fibrous foods available. If I provide my rabbits with grass, dandelions, carrots, and oats, those foods will disappear in the opposite order. Wild rabbits eat mostly graminoids and forbs because that's what's available to them, not because it's what they prefer. Fiber acts as an antinutrient in animals that can't make use of it (humans). It just so happens that its potential for binding nutrients also makes it useful in some cases of toxicity, but that functionality does not come free.
Sorry, I can't help but rant against fiber. The call for fiber consumption in humans is almost as bad as the call for eating the rest of the "phytonutrient" rainbow. You will notice there's no such phrase as "animanutrients"...it would be redundant because animal compounds are nutrients, whereas phytonutrients is just a euphemism for toxins.
Kathy55wood, you can research scientific articles about the fatty deposits. Basically, hepatic stellate cells are the storage cells for vitamin A. When these cells get filled to capacity, they develop fatty deposits within the cells, which the "activates" them and they begin producing the collagen that turns into fibrosis. In other liver conditions, the fatty deposits are outside of these cells, but eventually, the fatty deposits exert enough stress on the system that the hepatic stellate cells are activated under these circumstances too.
Some emerging treatments for liver fibrosis are targeted at using this vitamin A receptor in the hepatic stellate cells, which would ideally "deactivate" them, thus ideally reversing the fibrosis.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on September 7, 2021, 3:26 pmlol "good fiber" sounds like the epitome of an oxymoron to me. Even herbivores that subsist on fiber usually choose the least fibrous foods available. If I provide my rabbits with grass, dandelions, carrots, and oats, those foods will disappear in the opposite order. Wild rabbits eat mostly graminoids and forbs because that's what's available to them, not because it's what they prefer. Fiber acts as an antinutrient in animals that can't make use of it (humans). It just so happens that its potential for binding nutrients also makes it useful in some cases of toxicity, but that functionality does not come free.
Sorry, I can't help but rant against fiber. The call for fiber consumption in humans is almost as bad as the call for eating the rest of the "phytonutrient" rainbow. You will notice there's no such phrase as "animanutrients"...it would be redundant because animal compounds are nutrients, whereas phytonutrients is just a euphemism for toxins.
@wavygravygadzooks Yeh but apparently some people, who consume only animal products and no plant material, can't understand why they get the runs... 🙂 🙂
Not sure if you're referring to my own problems with diarrhea...I've certainly put up with a lot of it on a carnivore diet, that's true. But just because fiber stops the diarrhea doesn't mean that a lack of fiber causes the diarrhea, that would be faulty logic. I had plenty of days when I didn't have diarrhea on a carnivore diet and was borderline constipated. On the other hand, I had chronic diarrhea for years before going carnivore when I was eating fiber all the time, so it's certainly not as simple as "fiber resolves diarrhea".
I suspect that some combination of excess bile acids and fat malabsorption that started after cutting Vitamin A out of my diet encouraged the wrong bacteria to take hold in my colon. Once they had the upper hand, they started breaking up all the glucuronidated Vitamin A, which led to unbound retinoic acid, colon inflammation, and diarrhea, which further enabled the "wrong" bacteria to stay there.
The diarrhea has largely stopped lately while I've been taking a combination of probiotics and small amounts of psyllium husk, and reduced my fat intake somewhat. Really not sure what is most responsible though. I've backed down to just 1/4 teaspoon of psyllium per day (my only significant source of fiber) and still haven't had the diarrhea come back. I'm hoping I'm shifting my gut flora back to something better that can be maintained with meat and white rice without any fiber...we'll see if that's possible. I suspect that as long as the liver is overflowing with Vitamin A I will continue to struggle with bile acid problems, so I might have to stick with the fiber band-aid until I've gotten rid of more Vitamin A.