TEXAS, USA — Since the start of the pandemic, the purchase of alcoholic beverages has been skyrocketing. According to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, last year Midland and Odessa spent millions of dollars buying beer and liquor.
As a direct result of more and more people consuming alcohol than before. Doctors like, Vicky Bakhos-Webb, have noticed an increase of patients suffering from problems with their liver or even developing alcoholic hepatitis.
"It's actually an infection or inflammation of the liver secondary to drinking too much alcohol," Bakhos-Webb said. "Patients who drink a lot of alcohol basically end up damaging the cells around the liver. With that we end up with Hepatitis and eventually when it gets really bad we end up with cirrhosis. Once we hit cirrhosis it becomes irreversible and that when the big main issues start happening."
Dr. Bakhos-Webb believes people are suffering from alcoholic hepatitis because of the effects and struggles many are facing in the presence of a pandemic.
"During the pandemic a lot of people and patients either lost their jobs or were working from home so their day-to-day routine changed and a lot of them started seeking help with alcohol and managing depression, anxiety, sleep disorder and fixing it the wrong way through drinking alcohol instead of seeking help through different aspects," Bakhos-Webb said.
Symptoms to watch for may be nausea, loss of appetite, and fever. "Other signs and symptoms that we see patients can have is jaundice or yellowish skin, swelling of abdomen, certain veins; verrucous veins," Bakhos-Webb said.
Health care professional stress the importance of seeking help as soon and you start feeling bad. "I always recommend talking with a primary physician because there's tons of different aspects of helping them; medications, behavioral therapy."