Cirrhosis Support Group

They talked about the handwriting and HE, but what I thought was crazy was opening up the patient to squeeze his spleen to get the stored red blood cells out?????

Was that out there or what?

I watched also

I asked 2 hepatologist Both said

"In theory yes it could work" But that the time spent in doing this the patient would have died. Less time (and with the same effect) would have been to give the patient platelets IV Which would have been necessary before surgery any way. The treatment for a spleen enlarged enough to cause theses problems would have been to remove the spleen.

Interesting to me his first symptom was HE.

Even though it may not (will have to continue to watch) portray liver disease accurately hopefully it will be close enough to Open interest in liver disease in general.

We can only hope. But we will have to remember this is just TV fiction.And not a educational program.

I'm wondering if a person knows if/when the spleen is enlarged? Or does it usually just present itself on lab work?

I saw the "House" episode. The medical"information" on that show always has the slightest kernel of truth and then gets massively embellished. There have been three hemochromatosis episodes, all rather outlandish and none with typical conditions....I've asked my doctor what caused middle-of-the-night chest/side pain. He suggested it was spleen enlargement, which suggests it can be painful. (In my case, nocturnal angina seems more likely.)

The thing about House is he spends most of the show killing somebody and making them worse before finally in the last five minutes getting an answer. Sounds just like our doctors. Diagnosis, you are a fat depressed alcoholic, don't waste my time. Treatment, stop drinking lose weight and be happy.

Well said Mike

Anita

It feels just like the enlarged liver feels (to me anyway)

slight boring pain (lower rib area) all the time with days when it's bad. When

I lay down at night I'll lay on one side until it becomes painful then turn to the other side.

Yep, same here Gail, except that I'm usually pretty comfortable on the couch for a couple of hours.

I love House! Yeah his diagnosis are over the top but I did like the episode.

Shoot I missed it! Anyway to get the episode on my computer? (I wouldn't know where to start but I thought it was possible to replay an episode of something if you missed it?) Ru