shrinking your liver?

I've just seen two things about how people are trying to make their livers smaller 1 week before surgery? I've never had a problem with my liver, but I want to know why someone would think that's important.

Miranda, Most obese/morbidly obese people have enlarged/fatty livers. This isn't something you would know about or feel or even had a Dr say anything about it to you. It's a VERY common side effect of being heavy. Current research is even saying that fatty liver disease in obese people causes cirosis (I don't think I spelled that right) of the liver later in life which as everyone knows causes death. If you are having surgery laprascopically then it is essential to shrink your liver down some so the lap instruments will be able to move it out of the way. The way my surgeon explained it the liver sits right on top of everything they need to work on. It's a big, dense organ and if the instruments can't move it then the surgery will have to revert to an open surgery which means longer recovery and more chances for complications. If you are having a lap band I don't think any of this matters, or open surgery. But a lot of surgeons are doing WLS lap now and shrinking the liver is a part of that. If your surgeon hasn't said anything about it to you than it proabably is not a concern for the type of surgery you are going to have. Hope that answers your question. Corinna Q

Hi! Corinna how do you make the fatty liver smaller. Is it just a matter of losing wt. Before surgery. I' m a lapband, and my doctor did mention this, but I thought it just help's the proceedure to lose some weight before. Thanks, nobetterwomen, bridge

Bridget, My surgeon was pretty specific that it was lowing your carb intake that would shrink the liver most effectively. So I was not allow to have any more than 30 grams of carbs per day, which, of course also caused me to lose weight and you're right it can't be anything but good to lose at least some weight before a major surgery. But again, it was losing the carbs in the diet that most effectively shrinks the liver in a shorter amount of time. Amazingly it wasn't that hard to do less than 30 grams much easier than the Atkins 10 grams which is practically impossible to maintain for any length of time! Corinna Q

This is something that I also did prior to surgery...all you have to be doing is losing weight and that is what is going to shrink your liver.

I was banded on Nov 6th. For the two weeks prior I was required to follow a high protein / low carb diet to shrink my liver for the laparoscopic procedure. My surgeon stressed the diet because the liver must be lifted in order to get to the stomach. If the liver is too large/fatty, it can tear or even break which is a major complication.