Cirrhosis Support Group

I just copied this off the dissucsions posts in case you missed it. Hopefully it will help.

http://dailystrength.org/c/Cirrhos...

Couple good sites:

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/hea...

http://www.medicinenet.com/portal_...

Transjugular Intrahepatic Portasystemic Shunt. T I P S. Tips is a treatment for severe symptoms of cirrhosis.

When the liver is so severely damaged that the blood cannot freely flow thru. The blood backs up (like a clogged drain) into the portal veinous system. This is the veins that go into the esophagus and stomach. When these veins get so backed up that they bulge (portalhypertension) they can pop and bleed. This is called verices, there are esophageal and gastric verices. They can treat esphhogeal verices by banding. But gastric verices is usually treated by the "TIPS" procedure.

This procedure is where they go down thru the jugular vein, thru the heart to the front portal vein and put a needle from that vein thru the liver to one of the three hepatic veins in the rear of the liver. Expand the created tunnel with a balloon and put a metal tube into the tunnel. This creates free flowing access for the blood so it doesn't back up.

The toxins is not being filtered out by the liver, but it is not backing up into the portal veinous system, popping and bleeding.

Medication is required to help filter the toxins out of the blood.

If you have any other questions, I'll be glad to answer what I can.

My husband had the "tips" done on March 19th.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. It always helps. Our drs. check dh regularly for verices, and so far, so good - guess that's why we hadn't heard about the TIPS before. Would verices be the same thing as the hemorrhagic stroke he just had? Maybe not, since it was in the brain..

Angeline,
how is your husband doing since his TIPS was placed? Has it helped?

Bump