Autoimmune Hepatitis

The Gnome

Hey guys, just found out my mother has autoimmune hepatitis. She doesn't know much as she is waiting on further tests but I'm quite worried and was wondering what to expect. Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Kevster

Hi,

Sorry that nobody has yet to reply here. As a person who has an auotimmune condition too, I just felt that I might as well reply. Anyway, I'll be honest in saying that I don't know much about autoimmune hepatitis but, whenever I want info on a disease/disorder, I look it up on Mayo Clinic's website (this is the Mayo Clinic of American fame, not any clinic in Ireland's Mayo!):

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/autoimmune-hepatitis/DS00676


You can also look it up on VHI's website:

http://www2.vhi.ie/topic/adam1000245

Take care,
Kevin

Longerview

A relative of mine had Primary Biliary Chirrosis (spelling ?) .Its an autoimmune liver disease.She lived to be 82 !

budgie1984

she should live a normal healthy enough life with it, I was diagnosed
with autoimmune haemolytic anemia(A.I.H.A) when i was 7 and then diagnosed with autoimmune giant cell hepatitis(A.I.H) when i was 18, im 25 now.
From the age 7 to 10 i spent months at a time in hospital with the A.I.H.A, with that my bodies own immune system created antibodies that killed my
red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, I had my spleen removed when i was 8 (splenectomy) and docs used me basically as a labrat trying all different variations of drugs till they found the right combination the worst part was been on high dose steroids throughout the 3 years as they were the only things that kept my blood levels at a reasonable level, whenever they reduced the dose of them my blood levels would start to drop. eventually they tried a drug called atg and that cleared it up and i went into remission for 5 years till 2000 when i relapsed this time though it was only my red blood cells been affected i was on high dose steroids again for a little over a year and them with a drug called rituximab cleared it up again. in 2002 i was diagnosed with A.I.H this time antibodies were attacking my liver and spent only about 2 weeks in hospital in the beginning with it coz my liver levels rose significantly. my ast levels shot up to nearly 900 should be under 40 or something like that and biliruben went up to 100 should be under 20. again the treatment was steroids and rituximab. i haven't been in hospital now since 2004 i attend every 6 months for check ups and am on calvapen for the rest of my life to help fight infection coz ive no spleen and also still on azothioprine an immunosuppressive drug and fosamax to help build up my bones due to reduced bone densuty from long term steroids. i tell ya the steroids are worse than both disorders put together they caused me more problems than the 2 blood disorders