Autoimmune Chronic Active Hepititis

[mique]

My daughter is 2-1/2 and was just diagnosed with this disease in March.  She became very jaundice and her liver enzymes reached 836 before the liver biopsy determined the cause.  She is in remission since July.  And on 0.2ml of imuran and vitamin k now.  With just 3-1/2 wks after starting the predisone her enzymes remarkably dropped to 23.  There is not much research out there regarding this disease. She will be of school age soon and I worry so much of her getting sick.  Dealing with the predisone is worse than dealing with the disease itself.  Her doctors told us the worse is yet to come, how much worse could it get? Is her life expectancy shortened?  Can she live a normal life?  We are working with doctors at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.  Do we need to seek further advice on those that are experts of this disease?  Thank you for your time.

[imkindly]

There's some info about autoimmune hepatitus (hepatitis) at

http://forums.delphi.com/liverfailure/messages

(go there, then look at the column on the left side of your screen, click on the words "AIH - Autoimmune Hepatitus (hepatitis)".....that will bring up a list of topics that you can click on.)

Hope this helps.