Best Ayurvedic Tips by Dr. Vikram Chauhan (MD-Ayurveda)
Interviewer: Welcome DR Vikram, thanks for sparing some time from your busy schedule. Today we want to know about Liver Cirrhosis. So please tell us what is liver cirrhosis?
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: Liver Cirrhosis is actually a fibrosis of the liver. It like some tissue is injured for example your skin gets injure and it heals with formation of a scar. Similarly the liver tissue it become scarred. Which is called fibrosis of the liver. Similarly it is healing of the damaged tissue with the scarred formation in the liver with scarring of the liver.
Interviewer: What are the sign and symptoms of this liver cirrhosis? How I can see someone is suffering from the liver cirrhosis?
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: Liver Cirrhosis is usually bilirubin levels increase the body. These are yellow pigments which comes out in the blood and you can see eyes become yellowish and skin too and stool becomes clay colored. This is called jaundice and if jaundice is not present then dull pain or ache is present at liver side, sometimes acidity is there with abdominal discomfort. Indigestion is there in initial stages. In severe stages there is accumulation of water in the peritoneal cavity called ascites. And that leads to lot of problems like breathing problem also. Hemoglobin also comes down. There is esophageal varices i.e. in the lower portion of esophagus there is piles like formation occur. The veins becomes tortuous and those veins rupture sometime and there can be blood vomiting due to this in severe cases. So these are the different symptoms and signs.
Interviewer: DR Vikram what are causes of this Liver Cirrhosis?
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: There are many causes you know liver acts as an immigration officer you know whatever you eat, goes through the liver after processing through the intestine. Everything you eat after the digestion goes through the liver and it checks all the bacteria, viruses and everything and even drugs and alcohol so everything goes through liver and if load of toxin is more than liver cells can get damaged even the preservatives and food rich in chemicals, packaged foods, frozen foods everything which contains chemicals or toxins and goes through liver so liver cells gets damaged. This is a slow process, initially liver becomes fatty then it slowly starts to get diseased. There is alcoholic liver disease due to too much consumption of alcohol. There are some severe liver diseases like viral liver diseases, so alcoholic liver disease, viral hepatitis and fatty liver cause by the faulty diet habits. These are the all major causes of liver cirrhosis.
Interviewer: Is there any cure for liver cirrhosis and actually the process can be reversed?
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: Yes according to ayurveda there is possibility to reverse the diseases and cure it completely in some cases. We have seen better results in conventional system of treatment. And treatment also depends upon underlying cause. In alcoholic liver diseases treatment is very simple. In viral hepatitis treatment is different we have some herbs which can reduce the viral overload also.
Interviewer: Generally how much times it takes to reverse the process in ayurveda?
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: Initially patient start seeing the improvement in first month of the treatment. After start taking all medicines patients finds results in one month but it takes or is a long process and required about 6 months to one year to completely heal the liver. I am not saying that we can remove the scarred tissue and actually cure the fibrosis but we regenerate the left over liver cells of course there is 80% damage but remaining 20 % are functioning as liver cells have capacity to regenerate themselves and make new liver cells, so Ayurvedic herbs they help in producing more liver cells or liver mass through those left over 20 % liver cells.so liver transplant is not required and new cells are generated they help in living normal life. Even some one is suffering from alcoholic liver cirrhosis or hepatitis liver cirrhosis caused by the hepatitis.
Interviewer: So it is very much possible in ayurveda and is some herbs or bhasma are also recommended or only herbs
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: It depends upon different causes as I told you about underlying cause. There are some bhasma medicines which I usually give the, which are calcium preparation for e.g. like Praval pisthi, mukta pisthi and navayas loha and tapyaadhi loha Arogyavardhani vati so these are the common preparations used. There are some herbs also, like Phyllanthus niruri is very good herb in these conditions. Kutki is one of the best herb to regenerate liver cells.phyllanthus, Kutki, bhringraj, Kalmegh all these herbs are very good for improving the liver functions.
Interviewer: So DR Vikram one more important question is, what should be the diet if someone is suffering from the liver cirrhosis.
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: According to Ayurveda Liver Cirrhosis is pitta disorder. Pitta is fire energy balance. As you know liver is a seat of metabolism and fire aliment in the body. So fire element is disturbed so acidic diet should be stopped and alkaline diet should be consumed. From acidic diet I means all unnatural foods should be stopped like packed foods, frozen foods, drugs alcohol all these should be stopped immediately and high protein diet should also be avoided. If protein levels in blood are low then little bit proteins can be given in form of egg white. But still I will recommend to avoid high protein diet. Don’t give citrus fruit juices as we in ayurveda don’t recommend fruits like orange and lemon in case of Liver Cirrhosis as they aggravate the pitta levels. so we recommend anti acidic diets like apple ,papaya, pears, coconut water is also very good for liver cirrhosis patients act as a miracle. So green coconut water empty stomach should be given empty stomach daily. And reddish, carrots, melons, vegetable juices, beetroot juices, all vegetables soups are very good. And not the packed one. And this coconut water, reddish, carrot, there juices, amla, aloe Vera juices are also very good. Amla juice is good although it sour what after digestion it becomes sweet.
Interviewer: Ok Dr. so what should be the life style of the patient should do complete bed rest
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: Complete bed rest is must for the Liver Cirrhosis patient and no extra activities and in diet I want to add that all the vegetables which grows as a climber are the gourds like bitter gourd, long gourd and pumpkin they are very good. There juices are very good. Called ghiya, tori, tinda in Hindi this is very good.
Interviewer: Thank you Dr. Vikram for sparing some time. This will be very important information for the patient who are suffering from the Liver Cirrhosis.
Dr. Vikram Chauhan: Thank you.
