In the doctor/patient relationship there is a physician process which is called the "intention to diagnose". That may seem odd, but diagnosis requires a deliberate action by the doctor. You may be more familiar with the idea of the "intention to treat". You may have heard the argument that there is no value in identifying a condition if it can't be fixed and in that case there is no intention to treat so no intention to diagnose.

As a liver disease patient you may have learned about your condition when you were fairly advanced. Why does that happen? Is it a lack of the intention to diagnose, a failure of diagnosis, inadequate tools or training, or is something else happening? We are hosting a webinar on Wednesday the 17th at 12:00 Eastern.  We will be discussing non-invasive testing with a couple of experts, Dr Mona Munteanu and Dr Stephen Harrison, and we will talk about the diagnosis problem and the several tools available for detection and monitoring

This is of particular interest to me because in my journey to diagnosis I had many tests which in hindsight didn't tell me or my doctor much about my liver and while I waited I progressed from stage 2 to stage 4 without knowing it. We had the intention to diagnose but failed.

Today I would approach the problem much differently as an informed patient but most patients are not informed and too few doctors have embraced the intention to diagnose liver disease. In this webinar we will discuss testing from the perspective of what the patient should understand as they work with their physician.

In my personal case, I have chosen to use the LIVERFASt blood test to monitor my ongoing status. These are my recent results which show that while I do indeed have cirrhosis my NASH is still idle. Inactive NASH is a good thing. I believe it is vital for patients to understand more about their situation and I personally like this presentation.

I will do this test again after I get my second dose of vaccine to satisfy myself that I haven't had some liver related response to the process. Not everyone wants to really know what is going on and I understand that but for me, I'll feel better with more data. I believe the combination of the antibody tests and the liver tests will help me make decisions about how I go forward.

If anyone is interested in the blood tests, here is some information about the SUNN Screen Project the Foundation is sponsoring.  You can order the test without participating in the Wellness League if you wish so just some early info here.