Hello, my 2 year little boy has had elevated liver enzymes for 7 months now. Monday he is going in for a sweat test to check for CF. My husband and I are devestated...Has anyone had experiece with high liver enzymes too...what have they done for it. Also, is the sweat test terrible...what should we expect? Any advice would be greatly appreciated..thanks a bunch
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Basic Questions
- Thread starter anonymous
- Start date
First the sweat test is not invasive. Depending on the center doing it depends on the way they get the sweat to produce. Some literally have you bundled up & running around while others use a little gadget attached to the skin with stimulates the sweat glands. Liver enzymes being high can be very common in CF. The liver is affected, however; most CF patients have a harder time with the lungs & pancrease. Depending on the patient some meds can be used for the high levels or change in diet & hydration. The one thing to remember is that there is no straight answer for CF. If the sweat test comes back negative or borderline they might ask for another one to be done. I would also suggest the blood test to determine it which will tell you what mutation of the CF gene your child would have if they have CF. Good Luck & if you have any other ??? please ask. Let us know what happens!
That is great that you have a pediatrician who is willing to find out some answers to see what might be causing your son's high liver enzymes. While those with cf often do have high liver enzymes (including my two-year-old son) but most of the time they will also have other problems gaining weight and/or lung involvement. My son gains weight well and does not have lung involvement. However, he was diagnosed at birth and therefore is on a lot of preventative medicines that keep him healthy. He is on Actigal which keeps his liver enzymes numbers low. It does not mean necessarily that his liver is functioning at 100%, but it helps.
Here is a link on the cff.org site that will explain more about the sweat test.
<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.cff.org/UploadedFiles/publications/files/SweatTestFactSheetLH.pdf
">http://www.cff.org/UploadedFiles/publications/files/SweatTestFactSheetLH.pdf
</a>
Make sure that he is being tested at a hospital with a cf center. Local hospitals will often get a lot of false negatives.
Hoping for a negative test on Monday.
Sharon, mom of Sophia, 4 and Jack, 2 both with cf
Here is a link on the cff.org site that will explain more about the sweat test.
<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.cff.org/UploadedFiles/publications/files/SweatTestFactSheetLH.pdf
">http://www.cff.org/UploadedFiles/publications/files/SweatTestFactSheetLH.pdf
</a>
Make sure that he is being tested at a hospital with a cf center. Local hospitals will often get a lot of false negatives.
Hoping for a negative test on Monday.
Sharon, mom of Sophia, 4 and Jack, 2 both with cf
I am curious how/why they determined that his liver was elevated? Are there other sypmtoms that initiated the testing?
They first discovered that in my son while testing him for something else. At the time they had ruled CF out with a false-negative sweat test at a regular hospital. But they also did nothing about his liver levels either and told me he was 'going through a phase'.
Anyway with much persistence I pushed my way to a CF center and they did numerous sweat tests on my son, however he did not sweat enough even with the gadgets. So FINALLY they did the blood test and we got our answers. With his eleveated liver levels, he takes an oral medication and that worked. He is pancreatic insufficient as well, so he is on digestive enzymes. Since then, he has done so well. He is growing like crazy and a very happy boy. He just turned 3 and I can't believe how fast time has gone since he was diagnosed at 18 months. Just having answers helped us to get on with our lives!
Best wishes and let us know if you have any other questions!
They first discovered that in my son while testing him for something else. At the time they had ruled CF out with a false-negative sweat test at a regular hospital. But they also did nothing about his liver levels either and told me he was 'going through a phase'.
Anyway with much persistence I pushed my way to a CF center and they did numerous sweat tests on my son, however he did not sweat enough even with the gadgets. So FINALLY they did the blood test and we got our answers. With his eleveated liver levels, he takes an oral medication and that worked. He is pancreatic insufficient as well, so he is on digestive enzymes. Since then, he has done so well. He is growing like crazy and a very happy boy. He just turned 3 and I can't believe how fast time has gone since he was diagnosed at 18 months. Just having answers helped us to get on with our lives!
Best wishes and let us know if you have any other questions!