Alcohol use may not preclude you from being a donor, but you may need a liver biopsy to be sure your liver has not sustained any damage. You should not resume drinking alcohol after surgery until advised to do so by the transplant team.
In preparation for liver donation, you may need to make some modifications to your lifestyle. These changes include avoiding recreational drugs, tobacco and alcohol. You cannot drink alcohol for a full year after surgery to allow your liver to recover. You will also be required to visit the hospital and lab repeatedly.
Avoid alcohol
If your liver transplant was due to an alcohol-related disease, you must never drink alcohol again as you risk harming your transplanted liver. This also applies if alcohol was thought to have contributed to your liver disease, even if it was not the main cause.
The life expectancy of a Liver Donor:
As much as a person without liver transplant meaning the general population. Now you know that living liver donation has no impact on how long and healthy you will live.
Smoking: If you're a light smoker, stop smoking at least one month prior to your liver donation surgery. Because smoking can add risks to surgery, people who smoke heavily do not make ideal organ donors. Alcohol and drugs: Prior to surgery, you must be sober of alcohol and drugs.
You may be disqualified from having a liver transplant if you have: Current alcohol or drug abuse problems. Uncontrolled infection that will not go away with a transplant. Metastatic cancer or bile duct cancer.
Typically, a liver donor spends approximately seven days in the hospital, and will have an additional six to eight weeks of recovery time. Donors who are from out of town (greater than a two-hour drive) should plan on spending an extra two to three weeks in town after they are discharged from the hospital.
Unfortunately, you will have significant pain after surgery. We will give you pain medication but you will still be very uncomfortable for at least the first week. You will have less pain as each day goes by, but most of our donors have a significant amount of discomfort for two to four weeks after surgery.
You don't have to have the exact blood type as the person who needs a new liver, but you need to be what's called "compatible." This can be figured out with a simple blood test.
Livers from female donors yielded significantly poorer results, with 2-year graft survival of female to male 55% (95% CI, 45% to 67%); female to female, 64% (95% CI, 54% to 77%); male to male, 72% (95% CI, 66% to 78%); and male to female, 78% (95% CI, 70% to 88%).
How long will my liver transplant last? Liver transplant can have excellent outcomes. Recipients have been known to live a normal life over 30 years after the operation.
Relapse to “harmful drinking” has been reported in 8%-21% of LT recipients[7,8,29-31]. Occasional drinks “slips”, may not cause a significant graft damage, but with a history of alcoholism, it would be difficult to predict if these so called “slips”, could end up in complete relapse and harmful alcohol abuse[1,32,33].
Traditionally, being liver transplant candidate requires “six months of abstinence” from alcohol. However, the so-called “six-month rule” may not save some of life especially in severe ALHep patients.
Medical Grounds
Alcoholics historically have been considered unsuitable for liver transplantation because of their presumed high risk of relapse to excessive drinking after transplantation.
How Long Does It Take for a Liver to Regenerate After Donation? In a few months after surgery, your liver will regenerate back to its full size, and return to your pre-donation level of health. The other person's new liver will grow to full size as well, leaving both people with healthy, functioning livers.
Although mortality has traditionally been estimated at 1 in 250 for living donation, a more recent survey found a 1 in 1,000 chance of death among liver donors at experienced centers, and a morbidity rate of approximately 30%.
Live Liver Donation Requirements
Donors must have a compatible blood type and liver anatomy that is suitable for donation. Potential liver donors must not have any serious medical conditions, such as liver disease, diabetes, heart disease or cancer.
A liver from a living donor also has a longer survival rate. Living-donor liver transplants are more common among children who need a liver transplant than among adults because suitable deceased-donor organs are scarce. Most living liver donors are close family members or friends of the liver transplant candidates.
A small percentage of liver transplants are completed each year using a portion of a healthy liver from a living donor. Living donation is possible because the liver is the only organ that can regenerate itself. An adult may be able to donate a portion of their liver to a child or another adult.
Recovering from a liver transplant can be a long process, but most people will eventually be able to return to most of their normal activities and have a good quality of life. It can take up to a year to fully recover, although you'll usually be able to start gradually building up your activities after a few weeks.
What does the operation involve? During the procedure, a portion of the donor's liver (as much as 60 percent) is removed, leaving the “plumbing” like bile ducts and blood vessels, intact. Over a period of about 6 weeks, both the donor's and recipient's livers will regenerate, growing to their normal size.
Is there an age limit to becoming an organ donor? No: There is no age limit for donation or to sign up. In 2021, one out of every three people who donated organs was over the age of 50.
Whether drains are helpful in patients undergoing OLT remains unclear, although most centers still place 1 or several peritoneal drains at the end of surgery. These drains are usually removed or closed within 5 days of surgery to avoid large loss of ascites.
After a liver transplant, most people are in the hospital for about seven to 10 days. You will start taking anti-rejection medications immediately after surgery.
Embedded Player Many transplant centers require people with alcohol-related liver disease to remain sober for half a year, before becoming eligible for the waiting list for a liver.