The little niggle of worry
Hi, I’ve been reading posts on here for over a year now and have wanted to quit drinking for over a year. The day finally came 20 days ago. I have been lucky; with no withdrawals, my appetite has returned with great enthusiasm and I am sleeping well. I’ve just had a blood test (at two weeks) and the results, as the nurse said, we’re normal and satisfactory. Here’s the niggle of worry... I drank heavily for 7 years, starting with a bottle of wine a day and at the end for the past 4 years, 750ml of neat vodka over a 24 hour period (everyday) I don’t know how I have managed to hold down my career! At Christmas I had a bleed when I went for a number two. This was on Christmas Eve. You can only begin to imagine the panic. I stopped drinking over the Christmas period and went to see the doctor ASAP. The doctor said the bloods were fine and that my levels she would expect to see with someone with a mild infection and not to worry. Nothing was really investigated regarding the bleed. Fast forward to 7 months later, I continued to drink after this until I felt rather unwell one afternoon and threw up some bile which had blood mixed in. Three days later I went to the bathroom and had another bleed whilst number 2-ing. I stopped drinking that day. Rang the docs straight away and told them my history and what I’d happened, she felt around my abdomen and ribs. Didn’t really say anything to me other than it could be GI related and that if I get and more bleeding or black tarry poo, to go straight to a&e. Since then, nothing like that has happened again, I’ve felt generally well other than my digestion system coming round to the idea of normal bowel movements. However, my stomach is still bloated and when I wipe I see tiny pin ***** sized black dots intermixed with the 2. My 2 is what would be considered healthy and normal in shape and colour otherwise. My question is; is there a chance that the doc has missed the liver damage as I’ve read in a few places that sometimes cirrhosis can’t always be diagnosed with just a blood test. And reading about portal hypertension online can scare the crap out of you without too many clear answers to know if I have varies. Should I go back to the docs? I feel pretty let down by them so far as I am earnestly trying to understand and seek answer to put myself in a better position to understand my healing process and I don’t seem to be getting any answers. Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far! 😂