Liver Stones (Intrahepatic Calculi): Causes, Symptoms & Treatment

You must have commonly heard of kidney stones, but liver stones too afflict a large a number of people and can actually cause a lot of damage.

Liver stones, or ‘intrahepatic calculi’, are small to medium-sized pebble-shaped formations found inside our liver. These are basically the additional dietary cholesterol of our body that gets crystallized and stored in the liver. The presence of stones in liver generates a certain medical condition called ‘hepatolithiasis’, which may eventually lead to liver poisoning, liver abscesses and even complete liver failure.

Causes Of Liver Stones:

The actual reason behind the development of liver stones is yet to be discovered. However, scientists have come up with some major to minor factors that can be responsible for it. We have listed them below:

• Abnormal processing of bile acid and cholesterol within the liver
• Inflammation of the biliary tree (the vessels carrying bile to the gut from the liver) due to bile build-up (Intrahepatic Lithiasis / IHL)
• Accumulation of certain toxic materials in the liver as well as in the entire body
• Poor eating habits, intake of a not-so-well-balanced diet or malnutrition
• Genetic issues (presence of bad genes)
• Frequent usage of synthetic medications

Symptoms Of Stones In Liver:

Like most other internal health problems, liver stones also make us experience a number of symptoms. Here are some common symptoms that people with liver stones may experience:

• Sudden and severe pain in the upper abdomen (mainly on the right side), which can gradually shift to the upper back side of the body
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Acute inflammation
• High fever
• Extreme chills
• Poor digestion
• Loss of appetite
• Rapid weight loss
• Dark-colored urine
• Light-colored, greasy stools
• Exhaustion and sometimes night sweats
• Cholangitis (a bacterial infection of the liver)
• Jaundice (yellow eyes and skin caused by bilirubin build-up)

Treatment For Liver Stones:

Treating stones do not always entail surgery. There are some non-surgical treatment options available for curing liver stones. These include the following:

1. Intake Of Healthy Diet:

Eating nutritious foods and discarding poor eating habits can boost the functions of our liver significantly, removing existing liver stones and preventing the chances of reoccurrence. Remember the following points while planning your diet:

• Do not consume excessive carbs and fats as they come with lots of calories and lead to stones eventually.
• Replace regular Vitamin A with its emulsified version, which is available in liquid form. It contains lesser amounts of cholesterol and saturated fats, which can help keep liver stones at bay.
• Consume plenty of fresh and colorful (red, yellow, orange, dark green, etc.) fruits as well as vegetables that are low in both protein and sodium. Avocado is one of the best choices for this purpose.
• Increase your intake of oily fish, such as sardine, tuna, salmon, etc. and raw seed oils like the oils extracted from alfalfa seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and so on.
• Stop drinking alcohol immediately to promote the overall health of your liver.

2. Herbal Cleansing Of Liver:

There are quite a few herbs that can be used for cleansing the liver and treating the stones effectively. These include chicory root, dandelion root and leaf, greater celandine, milk thistle seed, turmeric, yellow dock root, peppermint leaf and wildcrafted chanca piedra. It is always better to use organic herbs in place of synthetic medications that contain harmful chemical compounds.

3. Other Non-Surgical Treatments:

• Antibiotics are given to the patient in order to keep the infection of the organ under control.
• Certain medications (like bile salt or ursodiol) are known to dissolve the stones inside the biliary ducts, which ultimately excretes through the urine.
• Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy can be employed to break up the stones into small pieces with the help of high-frequency sound waves.

Surgical Solutions For Stones In Liver:

In severe cases of stones in liver, surgeries are carried out by experts to treat the ailment completely. The available options are:

1. Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP):

It is a minimally invasive method in which the stones are eliminated by inserting miniaturized surgical instruments into the biliary duct and enlarging the ductal opening.

2.  Mechanical Lithotripsy:

In it, comparatively larger stones are pulverized inside a ‘wire basket’ put inside the biliary duct through the endoscope.

3. Laparoscopy:

In this procedure, the stones are removed through the ‘ports’ (incisions of 0.25 or 0.5 inch) created in the abdomen, by using miniaturized instruments and a small camera.

Hope the information was helpful for you. If you have comments or queries, feel free to drop in a line in the comments section below. And don’t forget to eat healthy to stay healthy.