Can You Donate Your Liver If You're Still Alive?

  • Living Liver Donor
  • 10 Things to Know Well-nigh Living Liver Donation

To many people, the phrase "living liver donor" may sound frightening. But did you know living liver donation is safe? Later on altruistic role of your liver, your liver will regrow and work normally once again within just a few months.

Most people who need a liver transplant spend months or years waiting for an organ donation from a deceased donor. Living liver donation is a amend option for those with cease-phase liver affliction because it ensures these patients go a life-saving organ transplant when they need information technology.

Facts About Living Liver Donation

1. Living liver donation is safety.

Your liver is an incredible organ. Information technology really regrows to its original size within six months of a living liver donation surgery. Like any surgery, the procedure does accept some risks. Only overall, living liver donation is safety. Our team will always act in your best interests and rubber every bit a donor.

two. Your liver volition grow back to its full size.

It takes nearly six months for your liver to fully abound back after a living liver donation surgery. Our ultimate goal is to make sure y'all're just as healthy later on your living donation surgery every bit you were before your surgery.

3. You'll have a complete evaluation that includes tests and screenings to make sure you're healthy enough to donate office of your liver.

The transplant team will perform psychosocial and medical tests to brand sure you'll be rubber during surgery—and that you lot'll stay healthy later your donation. Some of the testing you will have includes blood tests, urine tests, imaging exams of your liver, and cancer screening.

four. You don't accept to be related to someone to donate a lobe of your liver.

In fact, you tin donate to family unit and even friends as long equally y'all accept a shut emotional connectedness with your recipient.

5. Your blood type must be compatible with your recipient'southward blood type.

Besides being healthy, living donors must take a compatible blood type with their liver recipient.

vi. Y'all can nevertheless have a babe.

Are you hoping to have children in the future? Donating a part of your liver won't make it harder for yous to get pregnant or deliver a baby. Living donation doesn't cause fertility problems for women or men. Still, women should expect one year after their donation surgery before they get pregnant. This gives your body the fourth dimension information technology needs to heal.

7. Donors don't have to pay for their evaluation.

Existence a living liver donor is an incredible gift. We don't want costs to stand in the way of your decision. As a living liver donor, the costs you'll be responsible for are paying for health maintenance tests to make sure you're healthy enough to donate a role of your liver. These include (but aren't limited to) a:

  • Pap smear,
  • mammogram, and
  • colonoscopy.

You may as well be responsible for out-of-pocket travel expenses like gas, possible airfare, or nutrient and lodging during your evaluation. You may too need to cover any lost wages while y'all're recovering from surgery because not all jobs give paid vacation or sick leave. Some living donors are out of work for two to 12 weeks or more.

8. You tin can get well-nigh of the screening tests y'all'll demand at a lab or hospital near your home.

When you go closer to your surgery date, you'll need to take an evaluation visit at University of Utah Health, where your transplant surgery will as well take place. If you alive outside of Utah, there are organizations that can help you pay for any travel costs.

nine. You lot'll need to stay in the hospital after living liver surgery.

Most living liver donors stay in the hospital for five to 10 days. The transplant team will also enquire you to stay close to Table salt Lake Urban center (within two hours driving distance) until your surgeon decides you're healthy enough to return dwelling.

10. You can talk to other living liver donors.

Our living donor programme tin can conform for you to speak to another donor who has donated a portion of their liver. If you're nervous or don't know what to expect, talking to another living liver donor can help you lot experience more confident about your decision.

Discover a Liver Transplant Physician

Financial Resources

Are you because living liver donation but are worried about how much it will toll? Learn more about financial resources by reading the American Gild of Transplantation'southAlive Donor Financial Toolkit.

Outset the Process

Lynn Clark with his donor

Hear From Our Patients

It's been a long 36 years for Lynn Clark, 57, who has felt "rundown and exhausted" for much of his adulthood. The Hyrum man's troubles began after a car accident in 1980 led him to receive a blood transfusion. He wouldn't discover until 2005 that the plasma was contaminated with hepatitis C, which caused cirrhosis and, finally, end-phase liver disease. He'd demand a transplant to survive.

Unfortunately, the wait listing for a liver is long, and many patients dice before they reach the elevation. But a new hope—living donor transplant—is arising for patients with liver failure who have a generous loved one.

Read Lynn'due south Story