If you struggle with chronic liver inflammation, there is a good chance you have hepatitis. There are several different types and causes of hepatitis, including autoimmune hepatitis. This is a chronic type of hepatitis that stems from an autoimmune reaction where your immune system mistakenly attacks your liver, leading to inflammation.
Although there is currently no cure for autoimmune hepatitis, there are plenty of treatments and medications that can manage your condition. It is important to seek an early diagnosis and treatment plan because treatments for other types of hepatitis may not be effective with the autoimmune version.
Autoimmune hepatitis is when your liver becomes inflamed and enlarged due to an autoimmune condition. As with any inflammatory disease, the goal of treatment is to reduce inflammation since it is what is causing liver damage.
To do this, your doctor will recommend steroids or corticosteroids, such as prednisone or budesonide. Prednisone is more powerful than budesonide, but it also has more unwanted side effects. Therefore, in most cases, your doctor will start you on prednisone for fast effect and move on to budesonide if they see progress and you only need ongoing maintenance.
Corticosteroids also have a calming effect on your immune system, resulting in less ongoing inflammation in the future. Through the dual effect of eliminating existing inflammation and partially preventing it in the future, corticosteroids are the main treatment for autoimmune hepatitis.
While corticosteroids do a decent job of calming your immune system to prevent inflammation, it does not always do enough. Therefore, your doctor will likely prescribe an immunosuppressant, such as azathioprine or sulfasalazine. Immunosuppressants have the sole responsibility of calming your immune system, which prevents it from wrongly attacking your liver and creating inflammation.
Immunosuppressants typically have fewer side effects than corticosteroids. As a result, they are the preferred medication for long-term maintenance of autoimmune hepatitis. In many instances, once you get inflammation reduced, immunosuppressants can prevent flare-ups and inflammation down the road.
While corticosteroids and immunosuppressants are currently the only treatment options for autoimmune hepatitis, they are not without their side effects. These include the following:
Because of these adverse side effects, you will need ongoing monitoring and treatment for autoimmune hepatitis. If the side effects are too bad, you may need to change medications or seek additional treatment.
In a worst-case scenario where medications do not adequately reduce inflammation, it can lead to liver cancer, cirrhosis, or complete liver failure. If this happens, your only option will be to receive a liver transplant.
Liver transplant surgery is dangerous, major, and a last resort used for life-saving measures. During this procedure, a surgeon will remove your liver and any damaged tissue and install a new liver in its place. If only part of the liver is damaged, you can also opt for a partial liver transplant, but these are more rare than total transplants.
While autoimmune hepatitis is a chronic, incurable condition, medications can keep the disease at bay and prevent or treat inflammation. Over time, however, if treatments are ineffective, you may require a total or partial liver transplant. Therefore, to keep this possibility to a minimum, you should seek an immediate diagnosis so that you can start treatment as early as possible.