Imagine having a constant itch over your entire body that no amount of scratching will ever satisfy.
That is a reality for six-year-old Clara Peterson, due to an extremely rare liver disease.
Clara, from Green Acres, Washington, was diagnosed when she was an infant with a condition that causes bile salts to build up in her liver cells.
As a result, she scratches her skin constantly, leaving her with scars from her feet to her face.
For those symptoms alone, her parents desperately want a liver transplant to soothe Clara's agony. But, what's more, doctors say Clara's liver is failing and without a transplant, she won't live to see adulthood.
Clara Peterson, six (pictured), from Green Acres, Washington, was diagnosed with progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis as an infant
The rare disease is caused by a gene mutation that codes for a protein to excrete bile salts. However, the bile salts instead build up in liver cells and go back into the bloodstream. Pictured, left and right: Clara with her mom Natalie
Before Clara was a year old, she was diagnosed with a rare, genetic condition known as progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC).
She has type 2, which is a mutation in the gene that codes for a protein called the bile salt export dump.
The protein moves bile salts, which break down fats and remove toxins, out of the body.
However, the gene mutation causes the bile salts to instead build up in liver cells.
'She has extreme itching because the impurities that are supposed to be put out by her liver and her gall bladder go right back into her bloodstream,' Clara's mother, Natalie, told KXLY.
PFIC affects between one in 50,000 to 100,000 people worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Those with PFIC type 2 are often in need of a liver transplant before they reach adulthood and are also at risk of developing liver
