Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when your body's immune system attacks your own tissues and organs.
If you have an autoimmune disease, your immune system attacks the healthy cells of your organs and tissues by mistake. There are more than 80 types of autoimmune diseases. They can affect almost any part of your body. For example, alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease of the skin that causes hair loss.
An autoimmune disorder occurs when the body's immune system attacks and destroys healthy body tissue by mistake. There are more than 80 types of autoimmune disorders.
Autoimmune disease happens when the body's natural defense system can't tell the difference between your own cells and foreign cells, causing the body to mistakenly attack normal cells. There are more than 80 types of autoimmune diseases that affect a wide range of body parts.
Overview. Amyloidosis (am-uh-loi-DO-sis) is a rare disease that occurs when a protein called amyloid builds up in organs. This amyloid buildup can make the organs not work properly. Organs that may be affected include the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, nervous system and digestive tract.
BOTTOM LINE: Symptoms like fatigue, muscle aches, swelling, and redness could be signs of an autoimmune disease. Symptoms might come and go over time.
Autoimmune diseases can affect many types of tissues and nearly any organ in your body. They may cause a variety of symptoms including pain, tiredness (fatigue), rashes, nausea, headaches, dizziness and more. Specific symptoms depend on the exact disease.
Sepsis happens when an infection you already have triggers a chain reaction throughout your body. Infections that lead to sepsis most often start in the lung, urinary tract, skin, or gastrointestinal tract. Without timely treatment, sepsis can rapidly lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death.
What is a weak immune system? If you have a weaker immune system, you're immunocompromised . This means your body can't fight off infections or viruses as well as people who are not immunocompromised.
Autoimmune disease occurs most often in young women. Incidences of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis peak at approxi- mately age 20, with a 3:1 (female-to-male) preference [1,2]. Incidences of type 1 autoimmune diabetes [3] and autoimmune skin diseases, such as vitiligo, peak at young age [4].
When the body senses danger from a virus or infection, the immune system kicks into gear and attacks it. This is called an immune response. Sometimes, healthy cells and tissues are caught up in this response, resulting in autoimmune disease.
In fact, if an autoimmune disorder is left untreated, it can lead to more serious complications and even death. The person will also run a higher risk of infections.
Sometimes a person's immune system does not work properly. This can result from immune deficiencies present at birth; medications that suppress the immune system, like steroids; unnecessary or overzealous immune responses, such as allergies; or immune responses to one's self, called autoimmunity.
The antinuclear antibody test (ANA) is one of the first tests that physicians use when they suspect a patient may be showing symptoms of an autoimmune disorder. True to its name, this test screens for antinuclear antibodies, which are a category of antibodies that attack the healthy proteins within the cell nucleus.
Autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis often run in clusters.
An ANA test is used to help diagnose autoimmune disorders, such as: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common type of lupus. Lupus is a chronic (long-lasting) disease that affects many parts of the body, including the joints, skin, heart, lungs, blood vessels, kidneys, and brain.
Antinuclear antibodies are markers for a number of autoimmune diseases, the most notable of which is systemic lupus erythematosus (Ferrell and Tan, 1985). Antibodies to specific nuclear constituents are high specific for certain collagen vascular diseases.
The prognosis of lupus is better today than ever before. With close follow-up and treatment, 80-90% of people with lupus can expect to live a normal life span.
Your doctor will look for rashes and other signs that something is wrong. Blood and urine tests. The antinuclear antibody (ANA) test can show if your immune system is more likely to make the autoantibodies of lupus. Most people with lupus test positive for ANA.
For many autoimmune diseases, symptoms come and go, or can be mild sometimes and severe at others. When symptoms go away for a while, it's called remission. Flares are the sudden and severe onset of symptoms.