FOODS THAT MAY SAVE YOUR LIVER

As the few readers on this blog must have noticed, whatever I write regarding living through an acute infection of the hepatitis B virus is always through my personal experience. Which is the basis of the blog in the first place, use my experience as a survivor to educate and inform others especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

One major factor that helped me beat the virus in record time was the strict diet I adhered to, I was sternly warned to stay away from high protein foods and oils. The funny thing was that while I was under observation before my lab report came out (it took about seven days) the doctor said he suspected I had contracted the virus but he needed to be sure, hence the test. And at that time, the only thing I had appetite for was beans and oatmeal, not knowing I wasn’t even supposed to be eating any proteins or oils. I got weaker and weaker and became jaundiced, my skin was yellow and my eyes were a mixture of orange and yellow. Mind you staying away from beans was a big problem for me, because even at good times I ate a lot of beans and meat. 

So I began to eat little proteins and no oil, I say little because there is no way one can totally eradicate proteins from meals, so I took milk and ate lots of vegetables. I got a little of stick for my menu, as all I ate was bread, lettuces, cabbages, broccoli, aloe Vera, spinach. I ate these with white rice and sometimes grilled fish, just when the longing for meat was too great for me to ignore, I went for fish, grilled to almost crunchy taste so oils from the fish will be dried up.

So basically my menu looked essentially like this

BREAKFAST

Vegetable sandwich with a glass skimmed milk

Or

Plain bread and tea ( with milk)

LUNCH

White Rice with carrots and cabbage

Or

White rice with lettuce, grilled fish

Or spaghetti with vegetable sauce

DINNER

Anything from eba (Nigerian meal made out of gritty flour from cassava) to semolina, amala or pounded yam. All these were eaten with vegetable soup prepared specially with only water and no oils at all. I also had a special stew invented by a friend; it was made out of tomatoes, pepper, carrots and water.

I need to warn that these meals were not always as enjoyable as I may be painting them to be, at various times during my convalescence I fought the temptation to eat meat, chips and plantains but the thought of permanent damage to my liver kept me in check.

There are no hard and fast rules to what you can eat though, just make sure you avoid alcohol, oils and foods with high proteins, also research for various traditional meals and drinks that are known to boost the recovery of the liver.

‘SO YOU WILL DIE SOON?’

It’s been exactly a year or so since I last posted on this blog, a thousand apologies for that, I am alive and in perfect health, I have just been involved in to too many things, some of which included ways to make this blog a very informative one that will help spread the harmful nature of Hepatitis b virus and reduce infections to the barest minimum and the greatest off all, the birth of the most beautiful baby ever made, my daughter Zivael.

So a few weeks ago, I was on an online chat with a friend from Senegal regarding my experience with the virus, she was so concerned I was going to die, ‘’you mean you will die soon’’ in her French laced accent, I asked why she thought I was going to die due to the fact that I once had Hepatitis b, ‘all the people I know in Senegal that had it died very shortly after they discovered it’’. I allayed her fears by telling her I have lived five extra years after I was treated for acute hep b infection, and my liver is constantly on the radar as I do a Liver Function Test ( LFT) every six months. I don’t know if she was relieved because as they say only 30% of our conversations are words the other percentage is through gestures and facial contortions and as I couldn’t see her face I assumed she’s happy I am alive.

After that conversation I felt it was essential we spoke about how contracting Hep B is not necessarily a death sentence especially if it’s just at the acute stage. It is worth noting though that there have been cases of people being diagnosed of the disease and dying a few hours later, these we really can’t say what the reasons are at least not until we seek medical explanation. But there have been people diagnosed with chronic hepb who have lived years managing the virus.

Our view is that it could be really be a mental thing, once you are told you have the virus and there’s no cure for it, you instantly begin to think ‘ok so this is death so close than I had ever imagined’. I won’t deny that I didn’t think that way when I was diagnosed as well, I did, but I learnt to focus on one thing which was the fact that I couldn’t die and leave this world without getting married or procreating, I focused so much on this that i had an almost physical description of what my kid looked which miraculously isn’t too far from what my daughter looks like now. That positive thought along with good care and healthy diet kept me alive, of course I never let God out of the equation, God was at the beginning and at the end of everything I thought of then and now.

In subsequent posts we will deal with the power of a positive mind when managing hepatitis b infections by affected patients and their family members. In the mean time stay in good health, maintain a hygienic lifestyle, wash your hands every time and believe in a Living God. Take care