Stage 4 Liver Damage and Celiac Disease

[rebasdaughter]

My mother was dx with celiac disease in 2003.  She underwent a liver biopsy at that time and was told that she had some scarring and some fatty deposits on her liver.  She has religiously followed her gluten free diet, but has continued to have elevated liver enzymes, and suffers from fatigue, general malaise and has an enlarged spleen and liver.  Recently, she was referred to a Heptologist and was informed that she had stage 3 liver damage back in 2003, and that now it is safe to say she has stage 4.  We have heard that the medication that will be prescribed for her should pull the fatty deposits off of her liver, but will redeposit them to other parts of her body, and may cause heart failure.  Are there any other medications available without these tough side effects?  Are celiac patients eligible for a transplant (understanding each patient is looked at individually, just wondering if automatically denied transplant due to dx of celiac disease)

[Thomas D Schiano, MD]

i presume that the liver condition is not due to celiac disease as typically if the celiac disease is adequately controlled the liver damage will stabilize or reverse.  hopefully it will not come to transplant but there would be no contrainidcation because of the diagnosis. celiac disease is also associated with PBC and autoimmune hepatitis, 2 other liver conditions.  please confirm with your doc that the liver condition is in fact due to sprue.