Health anxiety has kicked in

[Suzanne]

I had two blood tests in the space of just over a week and sadly, my liver enzymes are hugely elevated in that space of time, which is panicking me.

I was tested by my psychiatrist due to anti anxiety tabs I WAS taking.

I had recent blood tests come back from my new dr to show that my blood sugars are elevated and then, to see if I am diabetic or it was temporary, she asked me to refrain from my vitamins etc for a week and reluctantly I did. Well, tests came back, to show that I do have diabetes and that my liver enzymes are in not a happy way.

I am not showing signs of liver damage, but am incredibly frightened, as I am thinking it is my omeprazel for acid reflux, which is causing liver disease, but I have to take them, other wise, I suffer horrifically.

Really, though I wonder if anyone has elevated liver enzymes and are ok?

 

[Mary Terry]

That doesn't sound good, @Suzanne. Your medication could be the reason for the elevated liver enzymes so hopefully the doctors will figure it out quickly. Do you know if you're going to have to take insulin shots for the diabetes or if you can just take pills and watch your diet?

I had significantly elevated liver enzymes last summer when I apparently had a bad case of food poisoning. Nothing definitive showed up in my blood work to identify what I ate - a bad bacteria? - and my enzymes returned to normal within a week. I took antibiotics during that week.

I have a friend who drinks too much alcohol, and she always has elevated liver enzymes. She knows she is damaging her liver but continues to drink hard liquor. I'd say she is an alcoholic which I know you are not.

 

[Tiffany Kate]

Livers are complicated, but they can take a lot of damage before they start to give up. And a lot of people have some degree of minor liver damage - for example, "Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease" is a chronic liver disease that affects about 25% of the population of the world (up to 30% in the USA): Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease | University of Michigan Health

Also, elevated liver enzymes can happen for lots of reasons. If they go up very suddenly, there's usually a "sudden" reason for them to do that - like @Mary Terry 's food poisoning.

If you've been taking your omeprazole for a long time and everything has been fine up until now, it doesn't sound like a likely reason for your liver enzymes to suddenly go off. At least, your doctor will probably go looking for other things first.

Do you have a follow-up appointment for your doctor to explain things?

 

[Judge]

I've always wondered about the nebulous warnings of medications like Omeprazole and Nexium, not intended to be taken continuously. Yet for people with conditions like GERD, if we stop after their recommended 14-day regimen, the protection against reflux begins to fade. (I've been acutely aware of my own reflux since 1993.)

Now making me wonder much as in the case of a few other medications, why you cannot sustain taking such things over time. Despite that they successfully do as they are intended.

Interesting to read:

"Omeprazole may not be safe for some people long term. But for certain conditions, the benefits of taking omeprazole long term can outweigh the potential risks. Your healthcare team can help determine how long you should take omeprazole."

GoodRx - Error

 

[Tiffany Kate]

People are really, really complicated machines. If you fiddle with one bit (the acid levels in the stomach) often something else changes as well (maybe the way you absorb magnesium or something).

And things don't work quite the same for everyone. You might get the same acid-reducing effect (that you want) but the side effects you get - if any - might be different from the ones someone else you knew got from taking the same medicine.

People are complicated.

Given that most (OK, all) medicines have side effects (which you may or may not get), it's generally a good idea to stop taking anything if you don't need it. And if you do need to take it, it's about whether the good effects that you want outweigh the potential side effects you don't want. And that might be different for different people...

Just like every other part of life, there's no such thing as a free lunch!

 

[Judge]

Nexium works remarkably well for me. However in adhering to their strict 14-day regimen, it's always months later when I may take it again, and mostly for special occasions when I know I will be eating out. The timeline of how often or not I can take such meds has never been clear to me.

Restaurants are notorious for using greasy animal fat for flavor enhancement. Making any number of foods whether spicy or not, potentially toxic for people like me. So taking Nexium is a must at times like Christmas. Otherwise just contemplating going to any restaurant can amount to a form of terrorism to me. Oddly enough this doesn't apply to many fast food places. Go figure.

My reflux discouraged me so much over time that I eventually gave up even celebrating Thanksgiving, when typical turkey dinners with all the trimmings can be as lethal to me as penicillin.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Just before I retired, several clients were being diagnosed with fatty liver disease. The remedy was diet changes. But there are a number of things that can cause liver disease. Your doctor will work with you to figure out the reason behind your elevated liver enzymes.

They are going to want diet changes with the diabetes too. The blood test number you want to monitor is called A1c. This is quite manageable for most people.