Jaundice
Jaundice is a serious medical condition that makes your skin and the whites of your eyes look yellowish. This happens when too much bilirubin builds up in your blood.
Bilirubin is a yellowish pigment created as hemoglobin — a component of red blood cells — is broken down.
Normally, bilirubin is delivered from the bloodstream into your liver. Then, it passes through tubes called bile ducts. These ducts carry a substance called bile into your small intestine. Eventually, bilirubin is passed out of your body through urine or stool.
What are the different types of jaundice?
Types of jaundice are categorized by where they happen within the liver’s process of taking in and filtering out bilirubin. They include:
Pre-hepatic jaundice: Health conditions that affect the blood’s rate of breaking down blood cells cause bilirubin to overflow into bodily tissues. It occurs before the blood reaches the liver.
Hepatic jaundice: Hepatic jaundice happens when your liver tissue becomes less effective at filtering out bilirubin from your blood.
Post-hepatic jaundice: This type of jaundice happens when bilirubin filtered from the blood can’t drain properly into the bile ducts or digestive tract to be passed out of the body. It occurs after bilirubin is filtered out in the liver and occurs because of a blockage.
