Main features of liver disease

The liver is a very important part of the human body for hematopoietic function. Once the disease occurs, the treatment of liver disease is relatively complicated, and the symptoms of each liver disease are different. Most liver diseases should have main characteristics. However, everyone's physical condition is completely different, so different symptoms should occur after liver disease occurs. What are the main characteristics of liver disease?

Symptoms of liver disease

1. Digestive tract manifestations: This is the most common symptom of liver disease, which occurs in most liver diseases, such as nausea, aversion to greasy food, poor appetite, general fatigue, etc., and vomiting, diarrhea, splenomegaly and other symptoms may also occur. Such symptoms may also be related to hepatic ulcer disease, portal hypertensive enteropathy, etc. caused by chronic liver disease.

2. Discomfort in the liver area: Among all the symptoms of liver disease, discomfort and pain in the liver area are more specific. When such symptoms occur, liver disease should be suspected first, and traumatic factors should be ruled out. Occasionally, normal people may experience temporary pain and discomfort in the liver area, which is relatively rare. Discomfort and pain in the liver area are often related to compression of the liver capsule by liver enlargement. As the disease progresses, the enlargement of the liver worsens or improves, and the nature and degree of pain in the liver area also vary. Liver cancer generally worsens progressively, mainly due to the continuous enlargement of the liver cancer tumor and compression of the liver capsule.

3. Systemic manifestations: physical fatigue and easy fatigue are the most common systemic manifestations. Some patients with liver disease may have varying degrees of jaundice, which manifests as yellow urine, yellow eyes and yellow skin. It is the most specific symptom of liver disease (except for physiological jaundice in children). Skin itching occurs when jaundice is too high.

4. Palms of the liver and spider nevi: Many chronic liver diseases will cause palms of the liver, spider nevi, and liver disease facies, especially in patients with cirrhosis. However, palmar erythema and spider nevi are not specific and can also be seen in normal people. Therefore, it cannot be said that spider nevi or palmar erythema are symptoms of liver disease.

5. Ascites: Ascites usually occurs in the late stage of liver disease or when the condition is extremely serious. If ascites occurs in cirrhosis, it means that the disease has entered the late stage.

6. Bleeding tendency: Bleeding in liver disease is caused by decreased liver function, which leads to reduced synthesis of coagulation factors. It can easily cause bleeding gums, hemorrhoids, gastrointestinal bleeding, etc. in patients with liver disease, and the bleeding is difficult to stop.

7. Portal hypertension: Portal hypertension refers to increased pressure in the portal venous system. It often causes esophageal varices, which is the main cause of gastrointestinal bleeding. Once bleeding occurs, combined with bleeding tendency, the condition is often more serious and is one of the main causes of death from liver disease (mainly cirrhosis and advanced liver cancer).

8. Hepatic encephalopathy: This is a manifestation of liver disease reaching the terminal stage. The symptoms are extremely dangerous and it is the main cause of death from liver disease.

Early symptoms of liver disease

Dull complexion: Different from sun-tanned skin, the face in this case is dull and lusterless; in addition, severe dark circles under the eyes are early symptoms of chronic liver disease, most of which are chronic hepatitis B.

Yellow skin: For people who have never had hepatitis, the early symptoms of liver disease are chills, fever, nausea, vomiting, liver pain, and extreme fatigue, and then the eyes and skin suddenly turn yellow. This indicates that they have acute icteric hepatitis. If jaundice occurs in patients with chronic hepatitis, it means that their condition has worsened.

Liver palms: The color of the palms is very different from that of ordinary people. The palms of ordinary people are rosy, while the palms of patients with liver disease are pale and bloodless.

Spider nevus: There is a red dot in the middle, surrounded by bloodshot, similar to the symptoms after a mosquito bite. When the center of the nevus is pressed with one end of a thin stick, the entire nevus disappears, and it reappears after releasing it. This early symptom of liver disease patients can be distinguished from other vascular nevi. It is reported that among men with spider nevi on their body surface, 85% may have liver tissue lesions of varying degrees, of which about 30% are cirrhosis.