Archive for the 'Immune Disorders' Category

Lupus is a serious immune disorder that affects thousands of children.

Many physicians and researchers believe that diet can play an important role in the management of Lupus.

Unfortunately, no one seems to have created an all inclusive diet, or plan for management of the disease.

It is generally recommended that children with lupus eat a healthy well balanced diet based on the food pyramid. However, there are certain foods that should be eaten on regular basis, and foods that should be avoided.

Avoid Immune System Boosting Foods

Certain foods such as alfalfa seed can actually lead to a lupus flare. Alfalfa seed contains compound called L-canavanine which acts as an immune booster. While this can be great for patients who are healthy, it can cause children with Lupus to become sicker.

In lupus, the immune system is fighting against itself. Therefore these foods will cause the disease to weaken the body even more.

Zinc should also be avoided as part of a regular diet. It is found in many forms of shell fish, including oysters. Zinc also acts as an immune booster, which will make the body attack itself faster.

There are two types of lupus that most people know about. There is systemic lupus, which is something that a lot of people know about and that can be a very devastating diagnosis to get from a doctor and there is discoid lupus.

Even though discoid lupus is not as serious as systemic lupus, it’s still something that can make life very uncomfortable for those who have it.

Discoid lupus is a form of lupus which mainly affects a person’s skin.  If you think that you might have discoid lupus, here are some of the things that you should look for.

Lesions

People who have discoid lupus will sometimes see a rash on their skin that is shaped like a disc, hence the name discoid lupus.

These skin rashes can be anywhere from five to ten millimeters across and may have a circle that is dark red in color which goes around another circle which is pink and scaly.  These lesions usually aren’t itchy or painful, although they can become hard.

Sensitivity

A person who has discoid lupus will likely find that they are sensitive to light and that they have trouble going outside on a sunny day without sunscreen.

Research has shown that vitamin D may prevent a variety of diseases such as osteoporosis, hypertension, cancer, and osteoarthritis. There has also been evidence to show that Vitamin D promotes a strong immune system.

Vitamin D is truly an essential vitamin, since a deficiency of vitamin D causes all sorts of bone disorders and muscular weaknesses in children.

Well, Vitamin D enthusiasts have another reason to champion this vitamin. Recently, Oxford University researchers found that Vitamin D lowers an individual’s risk of multiple sclerosis. But Vitamin D must be taken by the mother while the child is in the womb.

About multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that causes blindness and paralysis. Multiple sclerosis is a relatively rare disease, but the effects of this disease are devastating for those who suffer from it.

Vitamin D sources

Vitamin D is a very easy nutrient to get because the human body can get most of the Vitamin D it needs simply by being exposed to the sun for 10 minutes.

But since Vitamin D is so important, many foods have been enriched with Vitamin D including milk, fish, eggs and cod liver oil. In addition to this, Vitamin D supplements are available at most local pharmacies.

Do you have Scleroderma? It is an auto-immune disorder that causes fibrosis.

When you suffer from this particular auto-immune disorder, you can experience several associated symptoms and conditions, which are collectively known as CREST syndrome.

CREST syndrome, commonly know as limited Scleroderma, mainly affects the connective tissue of your body, which in turn causes various other health disorders.

It affects any tissue along the digestive tract and also causes serious lung and heart disorders. It is a major contributor of blood vessel and skin damage.

If you want to know how it will affect your entire body, here are a few serious complications associated with CREST syndrome. As there is no perfect cure to treat CREST syndrome, it would be better for you to be aware of its harmful effects and take necessary measures to avoid them.

Be aware of serious health disorders

Most visible signs of CREST syndrome like tight, thick skin on your fingers and face can change the appearance of your skin. It can even make your everyday tasks such as shaving or opening a jar difficult.

While these problems are manageable, the most serious complications associated with CREST syndrome are beneath your skin. Some of those serious health problems include:

Blood vessels in our body are generally referred to as the vascular system and any inflammation in this system is called vasculitis.

Vasculitis changes the walls of blood vessels and interrupts the exchange of blood between heart and body tissues.

Any change to the walls of blood vessels including weakening, thickening, scarring and narrowing is generally due to inflammation of blood vessels.

The signs and symptoms of vasculitis vary according to which organs of the body are affected.  However, a few common symptoms you may experience with any inflammation of blood vessels include weight loss, fatigue, loss of appetite, nerve problems, fever as well as muscle and joint pains.

Is vasculitis a serious health condition?

Vasculitis can be very serious and in an extreme situation, if a segment of your blood vessel becomes weak, it may stretch and bulge. This condition is known as aneurysm. The wall of the blood vessel becomes so weak that at some point it ruptures and bleeds, and occasionally results in death.

If the condition is severe, the tissues and organs which receive blood from the affected blood vessels don’t get enough blood. If alternate blood vessels fail to supply blood to those specific organs, organ and tissue damage can cause serious complications, and in rare instances, to death.

When your body’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs, it results in lupus.

If this inflammation mainly involves your body joints, blood vessels, kidneys and mucus membranes, then it is considered as systemic lupus.

Lupus more frequently occurs in women when compared with men.

Basically, there are four types of lupus, which mainly includes systemic lupus erythematosus, drug induced erythematosus, neonatal lupus and discoid lupus erythematosus.

Among these, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the most serious form of lupus.

But, once if you get appropriate treatment then it will be easy for you to cope up with this autoimmune disease.

One of the most important mechanisms that your body immune system uses to fight against infections is the production of antibodies.

But, if you are suffering with systemic lupus, your body immune system mainly produces abnormal antibodies in your blood.

These abnormal antibodies mainly target the tissues within your body rather than fighting with foreign infectious agents.

As the abnormal anti-bodies and its accompanying inflammatory cells mainly involve tissues anywhere in the body, lupus is quite potential to affect many areas of your body.

Behcet’s disease, also called as behcet’s syndrome is one of the rare health disorders that can cause chronic inflammation in the blood vessels throughout your body.

This inflammation in the blood vessels leads to variety of signs and symptoms that may seem unrelated to the condition.

With behcet’s disease, you can experience stroke, various intestinal complications, blindness and also swelling of spinal cord.

Usually, men and women with 20 to 30 years of age get behcet’s disease. However, children and also older adults can become victims to this chronic inflammatory disease. No one knows the main cause of behcet’s disease.

But, both inherited and also environmental factors such as microbe infections are suspected to be the major factors that contribute to the development of behcet’s disease. It is not a contagious disease.

Even, it is believed that this unusual and rare chronic inflammatory disorder is more frequent and also severe in patients who live in Eastern Mediterranean countries and Asia than those who belong to Eastern descent.

Behcet’s disease affects various organs of your body!

Even though the signs and symptoms of behcet’s disease can vary from one individual to another, it mainly depends on the type of organ that is affected with behcet’s syndrome. Most common body areas that are usually affected with behcet’s syndrome can mainly include:

——-Be Aware With Stress Associated Lupus!

Are you suffering with lupus? Do you think stress can initiate the symptoms of lupus? First of all, it is very essential for you to know that in some lupus patients, stress may not cause any direct or indirect effects.

However, it is believed that stress can affect any lupus patient in three main ways. These three ways can mainly include:

1. Stress can cause same reactions in you with lupus, which usually occurs in any person who doesn’t have lupus.
2. There is a chance for stress to be initiated with the early symptoms of lupus.
3. Stress can also be associated with any flare-ups of your already existing disease.

There are many signs of stress that are quite common in a lupus patient and in a normal individual. These symptoms can mainly include poor concentration levels, anxiety, skin inflammations, insomnia, muscle aches, depression, panic attacks and at times asthma attacks are also initiated due to extreme stress in your body.

Graves’ disease, the most common form of hypothyroidism, mainly occurs when your body’s immune system erroneously attacks your thyroid gland and leads to over production of thyroxin hormone.

Once if the disorder is properly diagnosed, it becomes quite easy to treat the disease.

This abnormal immune response mainly affects the tissue present behind your eyes and also some other parts of your skin.

The higher levels of thyroxin hormone in Graves’ disease can significantly increase your body metabolism and makes your body a host for different health conditions.

In certain peculiar cases, Graves’ disease gradually decreases or it can completely disappear after several months. If the condition of Graves’ disease is left untreated, it becomes a great source for developing severe complications in your body and in certain rare cases, it can even cause death.

How does it affect on your pregnancy?

It is very important for a pregnant woman with this health condition to be euthyroid before planning to conceive.

In fact, you should plan for pregnancy only if your graves’ disease is considerably under control, as the rate of birth defects or miscarriages is highly significant in females who are left untreated with this kind of thyroid problem.

About one twenty thousand people in America are affected by myasthenia gravis (MG).

This disease happens when the antibodies produced by the immune system damage acetylcholine receptors, which play a key role in transmitting the electrical impulses that cause muscles to move.

The immune response at the heart of this abnormal process is called as complement cascade, which is a complex chain of chemical reaction where proteins bind together and attacks a cell by punching a hole in that cell. In this way, acetylcholine receptors will get damaged causing severely impaired muscle movement.

It is necessary to make a note that myasthenia gravis cannot be cured, but many therapies are there to reduce the symptoms.

Does Myasthenia Gravis Effects Ocular Muscles?

Myasthenia gravis affecting eye muscles is ocular myasthenia gravis. Ocular MG is a disease seen at the neuromuscular junction resulting in muscle weakness/fatigability of the eyelids and eye movement.

Ptosis (drooping of the upper eyelid) and diplopia are characteristic features of myasthenia gravis or other muscular dystrophies.

The patients with myasthenia gravis mostly complain about oral (swallowing disorders), throat (dysarthria), and voice (dysphonia) problems.