Posted on 12/19/2004 2:08:29 PM PST by wagglebee
A GIRL of 20 has become the youngest person in Britain to need a new liver because of binge-drinking.
The girl, who began boozing when she was 12, was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in hospital after collapsing following a heavy drinking session.
Her case was highlighted by expert Ian Gilmore on the eve of a conference to discuss the alarming rise in drinking among British girls. Shock figures last week showed that teenage girls are now bigger binge drinkers than boys
The girl involved told doctors at the Royal University Hospital in her home city of Liverpool that she had become a frequent binge drinker by the age of 14 and continued until she was 17. Medics found her liver was so badly damaged that she needed a new one to save her life.
A hospital source said: "She is not the sort of person you would think something like this is happening to - she's an ambitious young woman who has a good career and comes from a stable family background.
"But she admitted she had started drinking heavily from around the age of 12. She first came to us three years ago and that was when the extent of the damage to her liver, caused by too much alcohol, was discovered.
"We've been treating her since then, but her liver is too severely damaged and she will need a transplant."
The girl, who doesn't want to be identified because she's so ashamed of her condition, is the youngest-ever person in Britain to need a new liver for alcohol-related health reasons.
Doctors are trying to find out if she is physically strong enough to undergo such a major operation and she has had to be given counselling to help her cope with the trauma.
The transplant would be the same operation that former football star George Best, 58, underwent after he damaged his liver beyond repair with years of hard drinking.
Mr Gilmore, registrar of the Royal College of Physicians, says it's unusual to encounter such serious alcohol-related liver damage in the under 40s.
"But we are seeing people in their 30s or even in their 20s much more now," he said.
Mr Gilmore is due to speak at the conference in London next month which has been called to discuss the alarming rise in drinking among women.
He said the Liverpool girl's case was a good way to show others of the potential harm they were doing themselves. Last week's new binge-drinking figures came in a report called the European School Survey Project on Alcohol, which was based on a study of 100,000 boys and girls aged 15 in 35 different countries,.
It concluded that binge drinking among teenage girls had risen from 20 per cent to 29 per cent between 1995 and 2003. It also said British teenagers were among the heaviest drinkers in Europe.
Binge-drinking among young girls has increased with the rise of the so-called "ladette culture" and teenagers copying popular celebrities' boozing habits.
Not to worry. The chances that the National Health Service will competently treat this young woman are nil.
They will still destroy a perfectly good liver.
What kind of family would let their daughter get hammered out of her skull at 12 years old and let it continue regularly for another eight years?
Must have been blind drunk themselves.
Anybody who drinks like this, it sweats out of their skin and stinks to high heaven for hours. No way her parents didn't know she was boozing . . . unless they're drinking too - then you can't smell it because you smell of it yourself.
The British National Health Service has a poor transplant track record. This young booze hound would be advised to come to the US.
Survival of the fittest, 'and smartest' I would add.
Something else must have been at work there - one would think that it would take more than 5-8 years to get to advanced stage cirrhosis. From the experience of heavy duty alcoholics I used to know it would be more like 15 yrs plus.
It says she stopped drinking at the age of 17. I can't think of a better person to give it to. It's very rare for someone's liver to get so diseased so young. I'm against giving it to men in their 60's and 70's who have lived their lives and made their choices for many years. Man, you're tough.
Yeah, right. What kind of career can be good when you're hammered all day - Bartender maybe? As far as the stable family life thing, it's more likely they meant oblivious family life. I agree it sounds like a waste of a perfectly good liver to me. /callous
Correcto!
Just curious, did Ted Kennedy ever have a liver transplant? I`m serious. It`s just I can`t see how a girl drinking for 5 years needs a liver transplant when a guy whose been drinking gallons of whisley, or whatever gasoline he drinks, every minute of every day for 60 odd years can still have anything even resembling a liver. You look at the guys face, it`s always beet red and his gut is out to the moon. He has all the traits of severe alcoholism, the edema in the gut, the red face, the psychotic ramblings, yet I can`t seem to ever remember Teddy ever needing a new liver. What is it, Irish genetics or something? I mean really, how in the name of Jim Beam can that guy still have his own liver?
lol!! Look, speak of the devil. I just did a search on Freep for Ted Kennedy, liver transplant and found a thread on just that..Hmm wonder if he ever got one.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b7bf2e66303.htm
DRUNKARD DAVID CROSBY HAS A DAUGHTER? This is congenital, heriditary, this isn't her fault.
/sarcasm off
she can have mickey mantles'.
Close......try a long-term Massachusetts (hic) senator.
Probably genetics played a hand in this too. Why do some heavy drinkers never have liver problems? Why do some smokers never have lung problems?
I think it's been shown that females are far more easily damaged by heavy boozing than males, so it doesn't seem that far out to have this degree of liver disfunction over 8 years. As for the comments from some other folks about the "waste of a liver" and such, this is a 20 year old kid who hopefully can get herself turned around and have a life. It's not like the liver's being given to a death-row murderer. I'm a cold-hearted SOB (references furnished on request), but, come on!
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