You should notice your general health and well-being improving when your liver starts to heal. For example, you may notice clearer thinking, more energy, improved appetite, and less pain.
Healing can begin as early as a few days to weeks after you stop drinking, but if the damage is severe, healing can take several months.
Your doctor will start with blood tests to see how well your liver is working. They may use ultrasounds, CT scans, and MRIs to get a look at it and check for damage. Some people also need a biopsy. That's when a doctor uses a needle to take a tiny sample of the liver and then tests it.
The average time it takes for liver enzyme levels to return to normal naturally is about two to four weeks.
So what happens when you stop drinking? The good news is that the liver is the only organ that can restore and regenerate itself. Because the liver is in a constant state of regeneration, in many cases the healing process can begin within just weeks after foregoing alcohol.
Fatty liver disease rarely causes any symptoms, but it's an important warning sign that you're drinking at a harmful level. Fatty liver disease is reversible. If you stop drinking alcohol for 2 weeks, your liver should return to normal.
7+ Days After Alcohol Consumption
It typically takes seven days for the liver to detox but a couple of months for the symptoms to eventually disappear.
Liver disease often fluctuates, meaning that one day you could feel well and the next be severely ill or too tired or sleepy to do anything. This makes it hard to predict and plan your life. Uncertainty is a big feature of liver disease.
A stressed liver impacts the overall body functions – it may cause ringing in the ears, insomnia, dizziness, blurry vision, allergies, no sex drive, internal or intestinal bleeding, sensitivities to chemicals, PMS, drastic weight loss and spider veins.
Blood Tests — A doctor may order blood tests to determine your current enzyme level. They may also check for any viruses present that could be causing the inflamed liver. Imaging — Tests like a CT scan, MRI, or ultrasound allow physicians to get a better view of the liver.
Like fried foods, processed meats like salami, bacon and hot dogs also tend to be very high in saturated fat. And as we've already discussed, when more saturated fat than is recommended is eaten over time, it may lead to damaging your liver.
Blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol
If you've got high blood pressure, there's a good chance it'll start to come down by the end of your challenge. Research has found that just four weeks without a drink can be enough to start lowering both blood pressure and heart rate.
5 Weeks Without Alcohol
Your skin will improve. Drinking causes dehydration due to alcohol binding to your body's protein that helps reabsorb water back into the body. This means you urinate excess water while you're drinking, which typically would have been retained by your body to stay hydrated.
However, by day 4 without alcohol, most people will have got beyond any initial withdrawal symptoms. All the alcohol will have left your system by now, and your body will begin to bounce back. If you're not as focused on alcohol, you may be eating better, drinking water, moving more, and perhaps sleeping more deeply.
Generally, symptoms of alcoholic liver disease include abdominal pain and tenderness, dry mouth and increased thirst, fatigue, jaundice (which is yellowing of the skin), loss of appetite, and nausea. Your skin may look abnormally dark or light. Your feet or hands may look red.
However, people who are having these tests should refrain from drinking alcohol for 24 hours before the test.