Hepatitis the Liver Is One

Hepatitis

The liver is one of the most important organs in the body, performing many functions such as detoxifying the body and keeping many of its necessary processes and its general homeostasis in balance. When the liver is negatively affected by disease, life threatening symptoms can develop, and this is the reason that the disease Hepatitis is so dangerous. There are actually several different types of hepatitis that can be brought on by viral infection (with different specific viruses causing Hepatitis A, B, and C), bacterial infections, and even certain drugs and medications, and each different type and/or cause of hepatitis can have different specific symptoms. All hepatitis types affect liver function, however, and at times people can go for decades with a hepatitis infection and not even know it -- it is only when enough damage has been done to the liver over time that symptoms can actually be felt, and at that point a patient can already be in or near total liver failure.

The symptoms of hepatitis can include such minor and common things as fevers, fatigue, and nausea, but these symptoms can become sever and other more serious symptoms can also develop. Abdominal distension or swelling can occur, with pain and tenderness in the area of the liver, jaundice (a yellowing of the skin and/or eyes) can occur due to a build up of chemicals that the liver normally helps to eliminate from the body, and due to hormonal changes men can even experience breast development, which has attendant pain and can have certain complications. General itching can also occur, and urine and stool both take on a different color and odor in many cases of different types of hepatitis.

Not all cases of hepatitis become sever enough to require treatment, and if symptoms are not too severe its often recommended that no treatment take place. Antiviral treatment is used in some cases, especially for treating Hepatitis C, but many of the side effects of this treatment are similar to the symptoms of hepatitis itself, and can become so life threatening that such treatments must be discontinued in some cases. In cases where treatment is absolutely needed but antiviral treatments either will not adequately address the cause of the disease or is deemed too dangerous, the only real option for treatment is a liver transplant -- when symptoms are bad enough to cause immediate concerns for health and quality of life, the liver is often too damaged for the body to repair it. It is for this reason that hepatitis often goes untreated; the complications of a liver transplant can themselves be life-threatening and lead to ongoing health problems, making it hardly preferable to most mild cases of hepatitis despite the chronic nature of the disease.