Ascites

Anyone have experience with ascites? I just developed this after a bad reaction to AC chemo. Treatment?

My wife developed bad ascites last summer after starting on xeloda. While the Doc's can't be certain of the exact cause, her extensive liver metastasis certainly played a major role in it. It seemed like the treatment with xeloda brought it on. It got to the point where she was getting draining of 5 liters of fluid in less than a week. She was so swollen she had trouble eating and breathing. All she could so is sit, and sit uncomfortably. She got a drain installed so we could drain it at home. They put her on diuretics and a heparin based blood thinner (subcutaneious daily injections). Eventually the ascites went away. We thank God for that miracle of healing. She stopped the diuretics, its still stayed away. It's been 10 months now and it hasn't come back. The Doc's don't think the blood thinner played any role in reducing it, as they say it can't dissolve clots, but it may prevent or slow it coming back. Her precancer diagnostic mri showed partial blockage of a hepatic vein. It's still partially blocked.

The way I understand it, the liver filters return blood flow from the small intestines. If the blood vessels in the liver become blocked, they call that Bud Chiari syndrome. That blockage causes increased pressure, because the blood can't flow. The increased pressure causes blood to become backed up, it causes ascites, esophageal varices (varicose veins in the throat) and a swollen spleen. When the pressure goes back down, even to a small degree, you can get a large reduction in the ascites.

The diuretics treat the symptoms to some degrees, as do drainages. Neither are a treatment of the cause.