An Introduction to Auto-Immune Diseases In an autoimmune disease, the immune system parts, instead of destroying harmful invasive organisms, they attack healthy cells, and subsequently causes various types of damage to the body.
This can organ and tissue damage.
Diagnosis of lupus can take a long time, and be difficult, but once diagnosis has occurred, a patient is well on the way to maintaining wellness and health.
Two Different Kinds of Lupus There are two different kinds of lupus - one is systemic lupus erythematosus - which manifests as a chronic inflammatory connective tissue disease.
SLE affects multiple body systems, and it can range from a mild occasional episode to a dangerous and life threatening condition.
The other kind is a variant - one which affects the skin and coexists with the other form of lupus.
Genetic Expressions and Their Effect on Diseases In the science of epigenetics, genes are studied and determined to be switched on and off due to various environmental factors.
The environment around a person can affect the expression of a gene, or it being switched off and not affecting a person.
Environmental factors that may cause the flaring up of an auto-immune disease such as SLE include viruses, bacteria, harmful invading organisms in the body and other theories about what are the causative factors.
Women who are diagnosed with lupus often exhibit reduced levels of various sex hormones which contribute to the restriction of antibody responses - so it is believed that androgen levels have a part to play in a person who is diagnosed with this condition.
How This AutoImmune Disorder Affects the Body In the process of this disease, there is the production of a considerably large number of auto-antibodies against regular human body constituents.
The most commonly constructed autoantibodies are against nucleic acids (related to DNA) and other important parts of the cell nucleus.
These autoantibodies counter with their corresponding antigen to configure immune arrangements and these subsequently are relocated into the body's connective tissues such as blood vessels, the lymphatic system and others.
This triggers an inflammatory response, leading to subsequent oxidation and general tissue damage in that particular area.
Symptoms of Lupus The general symptoms of this condition are fever, loss of appetite, lethargy, unexplained weight loss and joint pain mimicking arthritic type symptoms.
Mood disorders such as depression are often associated with it; seizures can also be an expression this condition.
There can be endocrine problems such as glucose intolerance, including elevated blood glucose levels.
There is usually a skin condition present such as a red butterfly rash across the face, sensitivity to sunlight, hair loss and ulcerations in the mouth and nose.
The kidneys can also be affected, resulting in elevated levels of protein in the urine.