Look Who it Was Random video

Case 24 - Joan With Fatty Liver, Diarrhoea And Candida

3,950 views · Published 24 April 2015 · 5:57 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: CanXida · 2015 · People & Blogs

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Thanks for tuning in. We're going to do another case today. Of course, it won't be her real name or age, but it's a real case. I'm going to call this lady Pamela. So Pam is 66 and she came to see me on the fifth of the ninth, 2014. That would have been September of last year she came to see me complaining of coughing all the time, lots of sinus problems, lots of flatulence, lots of diarrhea. She also had a yeast infection under the breast, and she had some vaginal thrush, not a happy chappy. This lady was feeling terrible, in fact. I can remember her quite well. A lovely person and Pam was just feeling absolutely dreadful. I helped one of her friends out, so she came to see me.
This lady came from a fair distance to see me, and we discussed her case at length. I started to get a bit suspicious about this person, and particularly about her lifestyle. So I remember asking her if any blood testing had been done. And it's interesting here; she had a blood test done previously, which was completed in August 2013. There are no distinguishing features of this patient at all on here, so you won't be able to see any names or anything, but I will hold it up. And you can see the three Hs there were the liver function. Okay, you can see a 136 there. You can see a 151, a 102. See the HHH on the GGT, ALT, and AST.
When I questioned Pam about this, I said, "What's happening with your liver?" And when I got her to stand up and I touched her around the liver, it was quite tender and quite painful for her. I got her to sit down, and we spoke about her lifestyle. And her husband drinks quite a lot of beer. And when I questioned her in a lighthearted manner, I found out this lady is drinking half a bottle of gin a day. She's drinking a considerable amount of gin and tonic, but she didn't think anything of it because she'd been drinking gin for a long time.
I found this to be a real concern, this quantity of spirits every day. In fact, I thought it was absolutely crazy that she could continue to do this. Her doctor mentioned nothing. The doctor basically did the blood test and said, "Oh, yes. Your liver enzymes are elevated a bit. Yep, that's not too bad. They are only mildly elevated. The reference range is 10 to 35, but you're 136. We won't worry too much about that," which I found really weird.
When you think about it, that quantity of alcohol with those kinds of health problems, I mean alarm bells are starting to ring at this stage. This lady had been to several practitioners besides the doctor, and none of them had really taken the drinking seriously. I picked it up and said, "Pam, you can't continue to do this. This has got to stop. We're going to get you to make some changes very slowly. Because if you keep drinking like this, you're going to be in a seriously bad way." And that's coming from a person who grew up with a stepfather who drank a bottle of scotch a day. I lived with an alcoholic for 20 years. So Pam, in fact, is an alcoholic. 
And I found that over the years, it's very difficult to work with people with serious addictions when it comes to prescribed drugs, recreational drugs, or alcohol, for a matter of fact. You can't make people change. They have to make these changes themselves.
I've seen Pam a couple of times, and we've managed to cut her right back to a couple of gins per night. She's no longer drinking half the bottle. She'd been drinking two or three shots per night, which is a huge reduction for her. We've already noticed weight loss. We've already noticed significant improvement in the bowel function. It's going to take some time to turn her fatty liver around.
The problem with Pam, though, is she has friends who drink a lot of spirits. And her husband's friends come over and they drink a lot of beer, as well. When you live with drinkers, it's hard not to drink, especially if you have been a drinker yourself. And the other thing I noticed with drinkers like Pam, they'll often have one close friend that will come over and drink or that person will go to that person's house. This is why they have a close association. It's the alcohol that forms the bond. They laugh. They get drunk together. They find it all quite funny. And they find that if they cut back, the friendship gets affected.
I've always maintained that when you grow as a person, you need to make changes. Sometimes you have to leave people behind. You have to think about your own health, and that's what I said to Pam. I said, "You need to think about your own health, not your friend's health. You're coming to me with problems. You're the one who needs to sort the problems."

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