Does PBC mostly affect older people?

[TracyLou]

Or are they diagnosed too late?, I was diagnosed in my 30s but I read a lot are diagnosed from 60s onwards. It makes me wonder if my body is ageing quickly, as both my parents died in their 50s and 60s.

[Hidden]

I think anyone can have the condition, but most are women (90%) and it is usually diagnosed around 40 -60 years. I was 49, but do not have any symptoms, only raised liver function results, which are better now I am on urso. I suppose if I had the blood tests earlier, they may still have shown the condition ...... or I could be carrying on now without even knowing and not get diagnosed until the symptoms have started. I only went for some regular blood tests - cholesterol etc.

Not sure if it is age that is relevant or the progression of the condition within your body, not everyone is the same. I know there is at least one man on the site and also others much younger than the average.

Hopefully you will be getting good medical advice and live a long and happy life with the rest of us.....

Take care

Lou

[brookeln]

I was diagnosed at age 35. My liver doctor says over and over that I am extremely young to have been diagnosed with PBC.

[Hidden]

I have read varying points about when one, normally women, are diagnosed with PBC and like yourself have read in one place that it is usually 60+yrs. But then I've read it that it usually affects women from 40yrs onwards so it's anyone's guess really!

I was 46 at diagnose in 2010 but was informed by the hospital doctor that I probably had it 'a few years'. That was by his judging the blood work and scan.

I started itching in 2010, that is the reason I visited the doctor and up to diagnose that year it all was pretty straight-forward. I had blood tests and more blood tests and then others to rule this and that out and then a scan. I was then seen by a doctor as an out-patient at Hepatology Dept within the local hospital and he did the AMA test which led to diagnose Dec 2010.

I wasn't so keen on the doctor at hospital, I thought he was a bit disrespectful. He had written me off as 'retired' (I had quit a demanding full-time job the month prior under my husband's direction) as he stated that when he asked where I was working and he asked me twice if I was still having periods which I felt insulted about as at the current age I was all being normal odds on I hadn't started the change (still clocking on as normal might I add though think I am starting on the path to menopause). I left the room that day feeling like an old woman in the fact that I had aged considerably from entering to leaving the building!

He described the PBC on my return as being something 'middle aged women' can get.

[TracyLou in reply to Hidden]

What an awful experience you have been though peridot, thanks for sharing xx

[TracyLou]

Thank you for replying.