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.
I figured she put roofies in his drink. That or put a twenty on a fishing pole and dangled it from the Senate gallery. Of course, with that latter idea, she'd have had to club off half the Senate until she found one she didn't want to throw back.
As for that "she's not the sort of person this behavior is usually associated with" stuff, I suspect that just means that there is no evidence (such as arrest records) of this girl having been involved in prostitution, especially as a juvenile.
You know, the five raisins in the left armpit slathered with Gin thing. I thought your picture was of her (HT) quality assuring Kerry's technique.
ROFL. Anyone who's seen Tuh-RAY-za has to figure that she hooked Lurch as much as he hooked her, however. I am still laughing imagining that beefalo sniffing the air to figure out where the gin pheremone is coming from.
Speaking of the witch - Haven't seen much of her since the loss. Maybe she's continuing the work on her liver which will lead to the need for a transplant as well. I knew I could somehow get this thread back to it's original topic.:-)
Well, I'm sure she's on vacation somewhere. Is she ever NOT on vacation somewhere?
I suppose she's NOT on vacation at the Grand Canyon. "New YORK is where I'd rather stay...I get ALLERGIC smelling Arizona!"
Me either. I think this is exactly the kind of decision American surgeons wrestle with all the time: To transplant, or not to transplant?
In this case, a young girl who quit drinking at age 17, but who, starting at age 12, managed to trash her own liver in five years, and now wants a second chance, deserves it, I say!
What does society have to lose, one measly liver? C'mon, give her another chance. What are we, the Taliban? She's learned her lesson (we hope), and has nothing but remorse for what she did. She was immature when she did it, legally unaccountable, had bad guidance and horrible supervision . . . For Heaven's sake, give the poor girl another shot! If she lets us down and starts drinking again, she lets herself down a thousand times worse.
I've heard of 'fisting' but ARMPITTING?
By the way - Where do I send the bill for the keyboard and monitor that were destroyed upon viewing that Picture?? :-) No need to respond - I think I know the answer!
I agree with you...I don't think anyone who has destroyed their liver should be given a new one... there are plenty of innocents out there who deserve one first.. to hell with the David Crosbys of this world.
Yeah but if he`s smoking pot chances are he`s probably doing coke as well now. He was a huge crack addict, just a complete psycho. I read a story on him where he got to a point where he would spend 24 hours a day smoking freebase, so much so that these coke crystals started forming underneath his skin, which is why his skin is all pitted now. He destroyed his liver from cocaine not from drinking, and if he`s smoking pot it wouldn`t suprise me in the least if he`s back on coke. What I`d like to know is how a guy like that is still alive. He has a liver transplant and he`s still overweight as ever and now he`s back smoking dope. Sometimes I really wonder if these guys are so rich they get livers on the side every so often, they just pay the right people and they get them from some third world country. Let`s not forget Mickey Mantle. The second they announced he needed a new liver, "miraculously" a liver was found for him like the same week even though people can wait over a year if not years for one, and then he died anyway from cancer that "suddenly appeared". That was very fishy that whole Mickey Mantle thing. If you have cancer your not suppose to get an organ transplant but he got one anyway.
I think a "stable" family background is like saying that the USSR was a "stable" government--literally true, but really missing the point.
I'm as skeptical as anyone regarding Crosby's relapse potential. His is a sad story.
Give her one of her idiot parent's livers....if they have one that functions.
That's the same thing I was thinking. I don't think it's callous at all. It's the truth.
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