How to Recover From a Liver Transplant at Home

The oldest surviving liver-transplant patient has had his liver for 25 years. Seventy percent of liver transplants remain viable after five years. But liver transplantation is major surgery, and requires lifestyle modification.

Instructions

• 1

  Care for your T-tube. Make sure that it is draining and does not look infected. Swab the insertion site with betadine at least daily.

• 2

  Evaluate yourself daily for signs of rejection and/or infection.

• 3

  Take your post-transplant medications exactly as ordered. Do not skip a dose, crush your pills or double your dosage.

• 4

  Make sure you and your family know your transplant coordinator's phone number. At most transplant centers, a transplant patient has a direct, 24-hour-a-day phone number to access a transplant team member.

• 5

  Avoid salt and alcohol, as ordered by your doctor. Salt encourages fluid retention in the body, and alcohol is harmful to your liver, especially in combination with certain liver-transplant drugs.

• 6

  Move your legs around when you are lying in bed, to help prevent blood clots from forming.

• 7

  Take pain relievers as seldom as possible. You may need an analgesic for the first four to seven days, but after that, you should not be experiencing so much pain that you require a great deal of pain medication.

• 8

  Avoid vigorous exercise for the first six weeks. Resume your daily activities as soon as you feel up to it. But use common sense - don't lift heavy objects, don't strain your incision, don't dive off the high dive.