How to Manage Autoimmune Hepatitis

It affects 70% of the women and occurs most commonly during adolescence and early adulthood. Is autoimmune hepatitis, liver inflammation that occurs when the immune system confuses the body cells with invaders and attacks them.

While there are several factors associated with liver inflammation, including infection by viruses, fat and administration of certain drugs, there is a cause belonging to autoimmune diseases, which are due to uncontrolled activation of the immune system (defense) that fails to recognize as their own organs and tissues, resulting in damage.

Origin unknown
The cause of this type of hepatitis is unknown; however, know the existence of genetic predisposition to develop, as occurs with other autoimmune diseases. Sometimes it is possible to identify a trigger factor for infectious type, which initiates an inflammatory process that persists even after removing the infection, as occasionally occurs with hepatitis A.

It is important to know that hepatitis is classified as:
* Type 1. It is the most common and can occur at any age.
* Type 2. It occurs in children and adolescents.

Because the disease course is hesitant (fluctuating), its manifestations are variable, there are even people who are diagnosed without having any discomfort. Among the symptoms most commonly cited are fatigue, nausea, abdominal and joint pain, purities or itching, jaundice (yellowing of skin and eyes) and spider veins (blood spills in the epidermis).

When autoimmune hepatitis is in advanced stage, patients may experience symptoms of cirrhosis (healthy normal tissue and the liver is replaced by a scar that blocks the flow of blood through the organ and preventing it from working) and dark urine (dark-colored urine), fluid in the abdominal cavity and encephalopathy (mental confusion).

Diagnosis and management
Detection of autoimmune hepatitis is only possible by combining medical criteria, which include review of patient medical history, blood tests to detect antibodies that attack the liver and different structures of the study sample of liver tissue.

The biopsy (removal of liver cells) is one of the main elements to establish the diagnosis and prognosis. This is because it can show changes that reveal if there is damage to the organ, changes that indicate disease progression and if you have already developed liver cirrhosis.

Note that untreated autoimmune hepatitis can progress and lead to the development of liver cirrhosis, so do not forget to practice routine screening because the disease does not always symptoms. Also detected in early stage can prevent irreversible damage to the liver.

Read more on remedies to treat Liver diseases and for Liver Cirrhosis Prevention. And also get autoimmune hepatitis treatment.