Autoimmune Hepatitis
My name is Fran and Dr. Rofrano is my nephew. In August of 2010, I was diagnosed with a condition called Autoimmune Hepatitis and I was under the care of physicians in Connecticut. I was receiving two very strong medications and not liking either one of them. They were the drugs of choice at that time, and still are, for Autoimmune Hepatitis.
My husband and I winter in Florida so we came down in November as we always do and I decided that I wanted to come down and see Dr. Rofrano merely to get an opinion from him. That’s all I expected; maybe a consultation, or maybe some help with these strong side-effects these medications were having on me, but I got much more than I expected. He told me that he had experience with treating Autoimmune Hepatitis and had great success. I never expected that. From there, we went forward with his treatment.
I have definitely noticed results. The first thing that we did was, with the approval of the doctor up north, I went off of those two medications. I told them that I wanted to try some natural things. My doctor said it was fine and that it was up to me. I did that. Dr. Tom did some testing and found that I had an intolerance to gluten so he made some dietary changes for me; a gluten free diet and a yeast free diet. He added some supplements and I went on that regime in January, and here I am, it’s April.
I had gained 16 pounds on those other drugs. I’ve now lost off of that. I think today I’ve lost a total of 16 pounds. I feel and look so much better, but the really good news is that my liver tests have gone back to normal. They were quite high before I started all of this.
I feel like I have a new lease on life for two reasons. One, I never expected that he would be able to treat me for this disease. Two, I had been told that these two drugs that were prescribed to me… that there was no alternative cure for this Autoimmune Hepatitis, that it would go into remission, and that these are drugs that I would have to be on for the rest of my life. One or the other. I might go into remission and I might be able to go off of them for a while, but the chances are that I would always have to take them. I was really really depressed about that because my quality of life had gone downhill from August 1st, when I started taking them, until December, when I stopped. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of my life on those medications. I have a new lease on life. I really do.