Pandemic drinking is no joke. Fresno doctor warns of spike in scary liver condition
By now you’ve probably seen the memes on social media about drinking alcohol to cope with the stresses of the coronavirus pandemic.
A Fresno doctor issued a warning about the serious consequences of coping with pandemic stress by drinking, and she painted a scary picture of what’s she’s seeing in the hospital.
UCSF Fresno gastroenterologist and hepatologist Dr. Marina Roytman said since the start of the coronavirus pandemic she has seen in Fresno an “unprecedented” number of cases of acute alcoholic hepatitis.
Plus, the patients with the serious condition, which affects the liver, are younger. Most patients with acute alcoholic hepatitis range from their 40s to 60s, Roytman said. But the cases she’s seen since the pandemic started have been patients in their 20s and 30s.
“I have never seen anything like this. This is unprecedented,” she said Friday during a Fresno media teleconference on COVID-19 issues. “The thing is that people die from acute alcoholic hepatitis. It is not something that it’s going to blow over. We have very few treatments for this disease, and unless your body decides to recover from it, there’s a very good chance that you may die from it.
“So I really want to try to raise awareness for this condition and step away from coping with a pandemic by drinking because this isn’t getting us any closer to a space that we’d like to be in,” she said.
Acute alcoholic hepatitis cause, symptoms
Acute alcoholic hepatitis can happen in as little as a few days from heavy drinking, and definitely from a few weeks or months of heavy drinking, Roytman said. Symptoms include loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, generally not feeling well, eyes or skin turning yellow, swelling in the legs or abdomen and a low-grade fever.
The disease is typically considered rare, Roytman said. When she would see cases in the hospital, she’d invite residents and fellows to take a look at the case.
Now, about half the patients she’s seeing have the disease.
The condition can lead to liver failure, and without a liver transplant patients may die.
To qualify for a liver transplant, patients must be sober and enrolled in a substance abuse program, she said. The problem is, the patients who show in up in the emergency department since the start of the pandemic are arriving the same day they’ve been drinking.
The good news is that the condition can be reversible. The liver is the only organ in the body that can regenerate itself, Roytman said. But in most cases she’s seen, the damage is beyond repair. The best way to prevent the disease is to stop drinking.
It’s not only happening in Fresno. Roytman said her colleagues in the Bay Area are seeing a similar spike.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Roytman said there’s no level of alcohol consumption a hepatologist would recommend.
“This is an addiction, and this pandemic is making this addiction worse,” she said. “We don’t have the resources to take care of it, and we have something that is driving it forward. So this is something that we are going to be digging ourselves out of for years to come.”