I’ve been peppering some of this information into the blog over the last several months and now I finally have enough information to share some updates about my health.
Going back a bit, over the last few years, I’ve asked my doctor to do a comprehensive blood panel at each of my annual check-ups. My father passed away at the age of 59 from bone marrow cancer and my mother, who is still with us, has several health challenges that she’s working through. One of which, pertinent to the article today is a late-in-life diagnosis of Type I diabetes (an autoimmune condition.)
Taking those factors into consideration, I just wanted to be as proactive as possible about my own health and try to catch anything in early stages if I could help it.
Last year, during one of these check-ups, I had a liver enzyme that was elevated enough that it caught my attention. I ran through a mental list of things in my diet that might contribute to that and the one thing that kept sticking out was my alcohol intake.
Going back about 6 years or so, my wife and I have been big fans of bourbon so each night we would enjoy two measured pours (1.5 oz each) of a given bottle from our collection.
Historically (although this is no longer the case), it was common to hear that men can have two servings of alcohol a day and women can have one with no negative effects. Current data is now saying there is no healthy amount of alcohol.
I brought this point up to my G.P. and asked if it was worth considering that since I’m not an “average” size male that perhaps my body can’t metabolize two drinks a day. She said that it was possible that could be the reason for the elevated enzyme, so Marissa and I spent the better part of 2024 cutting our consumption in half and knocking it down to one drink a day.
Late last year, through November and December I was getting sick at a frequency I wasn’t used to. I believe I was sick on 7 or 8 different occasions, enough that I was frequently calling off work from the studio.
As I was coming out of the last illness of the year (COVID before Christmas), I started thinking about anything happening in my diet that I could change that might just help me feel better.
The alcohol came back up and I stopped drinking almost completely on December 27.
Throughout 2025 and up to the writing of this article, I’ve had four drinks this year.
In my mind, I figured at the very least I would have improved bloodwork without the alcohol in my system.
That assumption was wrong.
When my bloodwork got updated, the enzyme that was elevated last year was even higher this year and two enzymes which were normal last year were also now elevated (above the normal range).
This caught my G.P.’s attention and she suggested I get an abdominal ultrasound to see what else was going on.
That was March of this year.
Since then, I’ve had the ultrasound, a cat scan, an MRI, an ultrasound guided liver biopsy and more bloodwork all to come to the conclusion of an autoimmune disease called primary biliary cholangitis (PBC).
PBC is a liver disease where my immune system attacks the bile ducts in my liver. It’s a benign liver disease and is not likely to cause liver cancer but it could still lead at some point to cirrhosis and possibly a liver transplant.
The first line of treatment for it is a medication called Ursodiol which helps remove toxic bile from my system. While it can help me manage the condition and lower my liver enzymes, it will likely have no effect on my symptoms.
Currently, the symptoms associated with PBC that I identify with are fatigue, insomnia and restless legs.
It is a fairly rare autoimmune disease affecting roughly 35 out of every 100,000 people. Of that 35, it affects 90% women and 10% men (although the percentage of men is climbing.)
People have asked me how I feel and the best answer is: tired. I’m tired pretty much all the time and it affects every aspect of my daily routines.
Lately, I can count on a solid four hours of sleep after I close my eyes but after those four hours, it’s a crapshoot how much more restful sleep I’ll get after that.
I only consume one serving of coffee first thing in the morning so I’m not continuing to dose caffeine further into the day.
There really aren’t any major dietary interventions beyond what might normally be considered “healthy”: a diet of mostly whole, minimally processed foods, reducing saturated fat, reducing/eliminating alcohol, staying hydrated and exercising.
Over the next several months, I’ll continue to get bloodwork to see if the enzymes are coming down, and to check on fat-soluble vitamin absorption (Vitamins A,D,E and K can be inefficiently absorbed).
PBC can put me at a higher risk for osteoporosis so I’ll start getting routine DEXA scans to stay on top of those numbers.
There is a chance that my thyroid is also negatively affected so bloodwork will be done in about a month to see if that’s the case. That could be another contributor to my fatigue and energy levels.
If you made it this far, my suggestion again is that you start getting current with your routine bloodwork. There is a chance that if I hadn’t been keeping up with those annual checkups and comprehensive panels that my body wouldn’t have necessarily been giving me indicators that something was wrong until much later.
I remain a firm believer that you don’t know what’s going on under the hood until you get it tested. The sooner you do that, the sooner you can get an action plan together.
I want to extend my gratitude to my staff, my clients, family and friends for being so supportive and understanding during these last several months.
It’s been a frustrating ride but at least now I’ve got some answers.
