The liver is your body's refinery, storage, production, and sewege treatment plant. You won't know if your liver's not working until it's function is down to 1/5 of what it should be.

Early signs of liver failure are subtle. Most people with a severely damaged liver won't know it for several years.

As the liver is progressively more damaged and scarred, it develops cirrhosis.

The scarring of the liver blocks the blood flow from the gut that needs to pass through the liver to get back to the heart. As a result, the blood has to use a detour along the stomach andf esophagus. The veins in the stomach and esophagus are not built to handle this large volume flow, and the pressure rises often causing these veins to burst.

As the liver continues to fail, it cannot clear the body of wastes and patients accumulate a substance called bilirubin in their blood. This causes "Jaundice". Another side effect of scarring is sweating from the liver and intestines resulting in the accumulation of fluid in the belly called "Ascites".

This is an example of esophageal varices.