Question:
Liver Enzymes are High. Should I be worried?

My plastic surgeon got a copy of my blood work and told me my liver enzymes are high. I'm not sure how high they are. Should I be worried? Will they come down on their own? I've read that milk thistle helps has anyone tried that?    — Lisa N M. (posted on November 27, 2002)

November 27, 2002
hiya. i've been going through the same issue...my ast is 90 and my alt is 80 (ast should be at 30, alt 36) so i've done a bit of research into the causes. wls can elevate liver enzymes for 18-24mos post op and liver enzymes are not necessarily excreted from the liver - can be from muscle, skeleton or even your heart! things that can elevate the enzymes are: alcohol, too much tylenol, hormone replacement therapy (in pill form), fatty liver caused by obesity and/or sudden weight loss, pending or recent heart attack, sudden/excessive weight training, injury or illness such as hepatitis. the first thing my doc did was order a hepatitis a,b,c test (all of which came back negative) so he's ordering an ultrasound to rule out fatty liver or even a gallstone still stuck in a biliary duct. we (my doc and i) think the enzymes are elevated (in my case) due to: the surgery (17 mos post op), hormone replacement therapy (just got switched to a patch) and excessive tylenol use...i was having horrendous hormone induced migraineds and was unable to sleep due to hot flashes/night sweats. our plan is for me to stay off of tylenol (i've started using melatonin to help sleep), i'm on an hrt patch, check for fatty liver and watch the enzyme levels. if the ultrasound rules out fatty liver we're going to watch the levels every 3 months and if they don't decrease, he'll do a liver biopsy. hope this helps. i've heard about milk thistle but haven't tried it yet. do some research on your own...you can do an online search on yahoo or another search engine, just enter "elevated liver enzymes" and you'll find a lot of info about causes and treatment. good luck! kate open rny 6-14-01 pre op: 268lbs goal: 135lbs current: 126lbs
   — jkb

November 27, 2002
Wow! Thanks, Kate! That was informative. I'm not too worried that there is a problem with my liver, more then likely it is because of the surgery. My WLS hasn't said anything about it. I happened to give my plastic surgeon a copy of my blood work and he mentioned it. I'll give it a few months and hope it goes down now that I am not heavily losing weight anymore.
   — Lisa N M.

November 27, 2002
My husband & I also have slightly elevated liver enzymes. It's fairly common, but that's SLIGHTLY elevated. I started taking milk thistle (American version) 2 yrs ago and we saw a decrease. They run JUST a smidge out of range now, sometimes one pops down into range. Much closer to normal.
   — vitalady