Are you experiencing upper right abdominal pain? This symptom is often caused by some sort of liver problem. One of them being a liver infection, which is the topic of this health blurb.
Liver function is vital for good health, for instance it is involved in detoxifying your blood, building proteins, producing digestive enzymes and participating in metabolizing, producing and storing energy. Unfortunately, these activities may be hindered by a pathogen infecting your liver.
There’s an array of germ agents that can cause a liver infection. The type of infection most heard about is hepatitis C. However, there are others that can invade the liver directly or cause an abscess to develop, just to name a few:
- virus ~ HAV, HBV, HDV
- parasite ~ malaria, helminth, protozoa
- fungus ~ candidiasis, histoplasmosis, aspergillus
- bacteria ~ E. coli, staph, strep, chlamydia, rickettsia, TB
Although each type of liver infection has its own unique combination of symptoms, the following symptoms are prevalent with many infected livers:
- fever
- chills
- diarrhea
- jaundice
- hepatitis
- weight loss
- loss of appetite
- upper right abdominal pain
- change in bowel appearance
If your upper right stomach pain or any of the other infected liver symptoms are severe, then seek health care professional assistance right away for treatment.
Infectious liver treatment varies depending on your cause. Treating options may include antibiotics, antifungals, interferon and liver abscess drainage or removal.
In some cases of an infectious liver, recovery may take some time before you feel back to normal. Some types of liver infections become chronically recurrent, notably hepatitis C.
