Concerned I have Liver/Pancreas Disease

[mattpenny94]

Hi everyone. I'm new to posting on this site but I am really having a bad time of it regarding my health anxiety. For about 5 days I've been having a lingering dull ache in my right abdomen that sometimes seems to affect my back. It's also a feeling of fullness/pressure just below my right rib cage and when I'm lying on my back it kinda feels like something is underneath the lower part of my ribs. To top that off this morning I had constipation which ended up as diarrhoea that resulted in very pale stools. As of now I have dizziness that's making the room spin. I'm a 24 year old male who a couple of years ago would drink quite excessively but I've been trying my best to cut down. My major worry is that I've developed some sort of awful disease in either my liver or pancreas. I made the deadly mistake of consulting doctor Google today and kept seeing things saying that pale stools are a major symptom of liver or pancreas disease so now I'm pretty freaked. Are any of you guys familiar with these symptoms I've described? I would greatly appreciate any advice or info you've got. Thanks very much :)

[AMomentofClarity]

At 24, you’d probably have to have been drinking a pint of vodka a day since you were 14 to have liver disease. That’s a very unlikely scenario. My best guess is something muscular or posture related, then IBS type symptoms driven by your anxiety and you end up linking the 2 in your mind.
But if you’re that worried, go get a LFT blood panel done to put your mind at ease.

[mattpenny94]

Haha okay I definitely wasn't a pint of vodka a day sort of guy. Yeah it has crossed my mind that some of these symptoms are caused by the vicious cycle that is HA. I'm gonna call up the docs tommorow and hopefully get some tests it's just sleeping through the night before that's gonna be a barrel of laughs. Thank you for putting your perspective across :)

[RadioGaGa]

Yes at your age the epigastric pain is more than likely from the stomach, rather than pancreas.

I think you should run this past your GP:

I was an alcoholic five years ago (drinking heavily every night) when I was 20-21. In the end, what made me detox was I woke up one morning with a dull ache in my epigastric region. This sort of radiated to the back, and like you, my immediate thoughts were PANCREATIC CANCER!

Turns out I had a stomach ulcer. Since healed and all is fine. No more alcoholism ha.

But, just because of your history with the heavy drinking, I'd see your GP to rule out a stomach ulcer. I'm confident nothing more sinister is going on, from what you've said, so please don't panic.

Good luck

[mattpenny94]

Thanks very much that's an interesting point actually. I will definitely run this past my doc tommorow. Also congrats on kicking the booze that's awesome!

[paranoid-viking]

Hi everyone. I'm new to posting on this site but I am really having a bad time of it regarding my health anxiety. For about 5 days I've been having a lingering dull ache in my right abdomen that sometimes seems to affect my back. It's also a feeling of fullness/pressure just below my right rib cage and when I'm lying on my back it kinda feels like something is underneath the lower part of my ribs. To top that off this morning I had constipation which ended up as diarrhoea that resulted in very pale stools. As of now I have dizziness that's making the room spin. I'm a 24 year old male who a couple of years ago would drink quite excessively but I've been trying my best to cut down. My major worry is that I've developed some sort of awful disease in either my liver or pancreas. I made the deadly mistake of consulting doctor Google today and kept seeing things saying that pale stools are a major symptom of liver or pancreas disease so now I'm pretty freaked. Are any of you guys familiar with these symptoms I've described? I would greatly appreciate any advice or info you've got. Thanks very much :)

As someone else wrote here; you would be too young to have major organ failure from alcohol drinking at your young age, but to heavily reduce your drinking or quit drinking alcohol altogehter (if you can not control your intake) and then sees what happens is never a bad idea. However; these pale stools; they come and go right? It is if it more or less persistenst there should be a reason for concern. Remember that diarreah is the most common physical symptom caused by anxiety BTW.

Remember that at your age it is still plenty of time to change a bad cycle of abusing alcohol, but the older you get and the more you keep abusing these substances; quite frankly; your chances of developing such organ failures does increase. But as for now there are still time to turn that around for the better.