Sheila's fight against Autoimmune Hepatitis

Not too long ago, I was sharing with a dear friend of mine what I am about to share with you. Once he heard the whole story, he strongly suggested I start a go fund me, and although we were not going to take this route initially and figure out how to fund this treatment which is not covered by our insurance, in the end we decided to give it a shot.

My dear wife Sheila of 23 years, a bubbly, fun, CrossFit addict, always on the go, hit a wall 8 months ago after being diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that has turned her life upside down.

Back in March she started developing debilitating and migrating joint pains. Within a week, most of her joints were swollen and painful to the point she was not able to get out of bed. After seeing our family doctor, we found out her liver functions were extremely elevated along with other inflammation markers including the red flag of ANA. From there we were referred to a Rheumatologist who, after many tests concluded that she did, indeed, have an autoimmune disorder attacking her liver. From there we were referred to a Hepatologist. More tests were done, including a liver biopsy, which revealed she was in stage 3 liver fibrosis from this connective tissue disease called Autoimmune Hepatitis. We also found out she carries the antibodies for Hoshimotos, Sjögren’s and Scleroderma diseases. At that point we were referred to a liver transplant team.

Since March, she has been on high doses of steroids and immunotherapy drugs to try to slow the disease progression. Most days she feels terrible, difficulty doing simple day to day things, and extreme exhaustion that makes it hard to just walk. Joint pain, shortness of breath when talking, numbness & tingling in hands and feet make doing simple things hard if not impossible. Because of it she has been out of work since May.

In September, her symptoms, again, increased and her liver functions raised quickly, so an urgent liver biopsy was ordered and revealed she has progressed to stage 4. The transplant team changed her meds again but she is running out of options against this rare, not well studied debilitating disease. A full liver transplant is on the horizon if the new medications don’t work. In reality a liver transplant will only be a band aid as the disease would attack the new liver, as well, as the liver isn’t the problem, it’s autoimmune, and she will be back to square one.

We’ve done a lot of research on stem cell therapy and although there are not a lot of research and/or scholarly articles on the topic (this is a rare disease - only 100K in the world) there are many on stem cell therapy for autoimmune in general. In conversations with friends, I found out two of them have gone through the stem cell therapy treatment and it has completely reversed their autoimmune diseases, so we are heading to Panama City, Panama, in a few weeks to a world class facility. According to the doctors there, she is a good candidate for a stem cell therapy for her autoimmune diseases.

The treatment will at least stop the progression with moderate hope to help reverse some of the liver damages. It’s not a cure but it will give Sheila more years of life.

The treatment is a weeklong in the Panama facility and as you can imagine, it is not covered by our medical insurance. This is sort of a Hail Mary, but it is our only hope as traditional medicine is not working.

Please forward or pass along this Go Fund Me and thank you for your generosity.