Sometimes your liver may get swollen beyond its normal size due to a condition such as hepatitis and others. Your doctor will refer it as enlarged liver and the condition is called hepatomegaly. Enlargement of liver must be treated immediately as it can cause complicated and life threatening conditions over a period of time.
Liver does many important roles in the body to keep you healthy. These include cleaning of your blood of harmful chemicals that your body might make. It breaks down fat from the food by production of bile. It also stores sugar(glucose) to give you backup energy when needed.
Therefore, keeping your liver healthy is very important.
When the liver is slightly swollen and not enlarged much, it may not give any major signals, otherwise en enlarged liver will give you fatigue and weakness, nausea, weight loss and if your enlarged liver is due to jaundice then your skin and eyes will look yellowish.
When your doctor suspects an enlarged liver, you may have to undergo blood tests and scanning through ultrasound, MRI or CT Scan and if required many other tests to see if the liver has become fatty liver or cancer.
Obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and blood sugar levels, heart disease, hepatitis and alcoholism can all cause a liver enlargement. Depending on the cause your treatment begins. There are some home remedies for enlarged liver that will help you to stop further swelling or even reverse the enlargement in some cases.
1. Avoid Alcohol and Caffeine
Whether you have fatty liver, cirrhosis of the liver or liver enlargement most of the home remedies will be same.
The first step in reducing further damage is always to remove the causes. Both alcohol and caffeine are bad for the liver. Stop consuming these beverages.
2. Bitter Gourd Juice
Bitter gourd cures many conditions. It helps control blood sugar levels that may be cone of the causes of your liver enlargement. Drink diluted bitter gourd juice daily.
- make juice of 2 large size bitter gourd
- mix equal amount of water
- drink it
Bitter gourd juice is bitter and you may not like the taste, but you may begin to tolerate it after some time.
3. Eggplant
Eggplant is a very good remedy for enlarged liver. It stimulates inactive cells in the liver which can help to restore liver to normalcy.
Include egg plant in your daily diet. You can add it to salads, cook some dishes out of egg plant.
Go for it.
4. Orange Juice
Orange juice contains vitamin C and other nutrients. Drink 1 glass of orange juice daily. If you have acid reflux or any other acidity or heartburn issues, then this may not be suitable for you.
5. Vegetable Juices
A lots of vegetables such as spinach, carrots, beet root, cucumbers are very good remedies for enlarged liver.
Make these juices. Mix them with each other in the ratios that you like and develop tastes for.
In addition to the above specific food items, you may also have to stop using junk foods and highly fatty foods. Reduce weight so that there is less stress on the liver.
All these precautions and remedies will help you to reduce the enlargement of your liver, but it is very important that you keep you doctor in the loop who will monitor the progress and guide you to take the right next steps if your efforts are not producing results.