- New Hepatologist

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone. I just wanted to update everyone about the new

Hepatologist is seeing. I know we have only been there once

but I love him already.

1) He said that he discussed with Dr. Rosen (the colorectal

surgeon who removed his rectal mass over the summer - this was our

first visit to see Dr. Purdum so that really impressed me). He

thought that it was really good that I had insisted that be

seen by a colorectal surgeon instead of the general surgeon that his

GI was planning to send him to. I think his old GI pretty much only

sent people to the general surgoen.

2) He examined his palms and fingernails and told us that we did not

want his palms to turn real red or the half moons on his nails to go

all the way to the end.

3) Not only did he say that my husband should have a prescription for

Cipro in his wallet at all times, he also said that I should keep a

backup copy for him.

4) He said that they were going to pull the liver biopsy sample that

had taken in either 2002 or early 2003 when we still thought

it was just fatty liver and have his people look at it. I was really

impressed about this. Not because I expect them to find something I

know that PSC is difficult to diagnose with a needle biopsy but I

just think it is good that he has people he wants to look at it.

5) He is going to have his people look at ' MRCP scans to see

if they think that he could be helped with an ERCP. When asked if he

did his own ERCP's he said he had done 23 and he would never do

another one but that the two people in his practice who do the ERCPs

had done thousands and they were very, very good. He said that the

good thing about his practice is that he doesn't have to do ERCPs and

they don't have to do liver biopsies. His old GI doctor had us

really afraid of ERCPs talking about the risk of pancreatitis (sp)

being about 1 in 6 (which is much higher than what I have read and

the new hep agreed that the risk was lower than that). He said that

he didn't want to do an ERCP right now unless his team thought that

one could help with the partial blocking that showed up on the MRCP.

6) He put on high dose urso (Urso Forte 500mg - 2 tablets

twice daily for a total of 2000mg/day - weighs 229).

7) He said that with my family medical history that Melody and I

should both have annual liver function tests. He also named about

three genetic markers that we should have checked. But I did not

right those down and will need to ask him about them at our follow-up

visit.

8) He said that they always have someone available on-call and that

even when hs is off duty that the on-call doctor calls him if one of

his patients needs to be admitted.

9) He said that needs to stop his cholesterol meds continue

his blood pressure meds. Get a pnemonia shot. And our whole family

needs annual flu shots.

I guess with his old GI, I really felt like he cared a lot about

but that he really didn't specialize in that (his specialty

is novel reflux treatments). His did less than 4 ERCPs a year.

I just feel like we are in better hands now.