Primary Billiary Cirrhosis

  Dear Dr's.
  11/21/98
  
  I am a 47 year old women who was just diagnosed with stage 1 PBC
  (Primary Billiary Cirrhosis).  In a routine checkup my liver enzymes
  were found to be elevated.  At that time my
  Doctor took me off  birth control pills (Loestrin) and we took another
  blood test after 3 months.  The enzymes remained elevated.  The next
  step was to send me to a specialist who performed a liver biopsy
  resulting in a formal diagnosis of PBC.
  The following is a short history of my particular case:
  *
                          9/97       6/98       9/98
  Alkaline Phosphates     198         266        354
  AST                      49          68         68
  ALT                      27          42         47
  GGTP                    175          234       384
  *   I am 5'2" in height and weigh 145 pounds.  (Apple shaped body)
  *   I have had low blood sugar since the age of 25.
  *   I have never smoked and I rarely drink alcohol.  (1-2 drink maximum
  on special occasions)
  *   For the past 3 months I have been doing aerobic exercises for 1 hour
  4-5 times per week.
  
  I purchased a book "The Liver Cleansing Diet"  and have started
  taking Livatone for the past 2 weeks. My Doctor told me this was an auto immune disease and that
  diet would not help.  He also prescribed the drug  Actigal (2 tablets)
  to be taken daily.
  
  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
  Sincerely,
  Linda Ahearn
_______
Dear Linda,
I must compliment your doctor on making the diagnosis so quickly.
PBC is a chronic disease whose cause is not exactly clear. It is probably an autoimmune disease. By that, I mean the body attacks the liver..
Many drugs have been used to treat patients with PBC. Most of these are ineffective. The one drug that has shown promising results is Actigall (ursodeoxycholic acid). Actigall delays the progression of the disease and improves survival. It also appears to be effective therapy in delaying or preventing the need for liver transplantation. Actigall also relieves the symptoms of PBC such as itching. The current standard of care is that all patients with PBC should be on Actigall.
I am not familiar with "Livatone" or any diet which is helpful in PBC. I assume Livatone is a herbal medication. The problems with these herbal medications are that they have not been studied in detail and there is no data on side effects. Moreover, there is no standard of quality control and it is possible that some of these 'drugs/ maybe contaminated. At the present time I would suggest that you Livatone.
This information is presented for educational purposes only.  Always ask specific questions to your personal physician.
HFHSM.D.-sg
*keywords: primary biliary cirrhosis
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