A HAVERFORDWEST woman is challenging the stigma surrounding a rare liver condition, and raising awareness of it.

Retired nurse Jacqueline Aitken was 49 when she was diagnosed with PBC (Primary Biliary Cholangitis) in 1994.

She was chronically tired and had severe abdominal pain, but her GP didn’t pick up on her condition. It was only when she changed GP practices and met with her new GP who picked up on her strange blood tests and sent her to a liver specialist, did she receive a PBC positive confirmation.

PBC is a long-term, auto-immune condition which affects the liver. The body thinks that the bile ducts within the liver are foreign objects and tries to destroy the lining to these ducts.

As a community health nurse, Jacqueline was no stranger to the medical profession or using medical terminology, but often found herself being wrongly accused of being a drinker due to the ‘C’ standing for Cirrhosis and not Cholangitis as it is now. People, both professionally and personally, questioned her alcohol use due to the misleading nature of the illness’s name.

She was put on to ursodeoxycholic acid; her abdominal pain subsided though the chronic fatigue continued, managing to work until retiring at the age of 60, thanks to the support of her husband Keith.

She contacted support group the PBC Foundation after her diagnosis.

Jacqueline sad: “I’ve had to put up with quite a lot of ignorance to do with my condition over the years. Either people think because I look well there can’t be anything wrong with me or they have suspected my condition was due to alcohol misuse because of the word ‘cirrhosis’ so I’m very glad that has now been changed to something more appropriate.

“I’d urge anybody with any of the symptoms to request that their blood is tested for PBC so that if they are diagnosed with the condition, then they can access treatment sooner and hopefully improve their quality of life.”

She is concerned just now as her consultant at Withybush Hospital in Pembrokeshire has retired and has not been replaced and is unsure as to what is going to happen next.

Jacqueline is the local coordinator for the PBC Foundation in west Wales.

Contact can be made by calling the PBC main number on 0131 556 6811 and they will forward on Jacqueline’s details.