Immune system

Because my immune system got boosted all by itself, thank you!

DocDavid responded to this some time ago. Your immune system is [U]not[/U] “to strong”. It has become sick and gone awry. You do need to encourage “health” for your immune system. And the first line of defense is good nutrition and supplements like vitamins and minerals. And it has recently been discovered those with auto-immune disease have low levels of Vit. D. As a society we live, work, and play in doors and when we do go out, have been told to slather our skin with chemicals to keep from getting to much sun! (that would tend to “bake” the chemicals into our system and then what happens???) There is a “healthy” amount of sun that we need in order to have homostasis (healthy balance).

I’m sure that DocDavid would give you more info on the immune system should you private message him.

when I wanted to try something to boost my immune system, my doctor said that if I boosted my immune system, it would be like putting my immune system, that is sick, on steroids. I don’t need my immune system doing more damage to my nervous system. 🙂

We need healthy immune systems, not boosted ones. There’s a good reason why most of us are on some form of immunosuppressants.

Deb

I was under the impression that CIDP in short describes ‘the immune system attacking the nerves”.There is nothing wrong with the immune system or the nerves .It,s just that one is trying to destroy the other.
When immune globulin is administered the body,s immune system is confused by the globulin and stops attacking the nerves which thenslowly recover.

Hi, Gordo.

That’s pretty much it in terms of CIDP and immunoglobulin (actually, from what I understand the doctors aren’t complely sure why IVIg helps with CIDP, but since it does they use it). The problem is that the immune system isn’t supposed to attack the nerves, so it’s considered to be unhealthy–it isn’t working properly. (I heard someone compare it to cancer: it’s not the cells that are the problem, it’s that they’ve gone wild and are doing more than they’re supposed to.)

When IVIg doesn’t work (or even when it does) a lot of us take prednisolone or one of the cancer drugs (azathioprine, methotrexate, rituxin, etc.), which suppress the immune system. Problem is, these drugs make the immune system stop attacking not only the nerves, but also the things it’s supposed to attack, like viruses, bacteria, etc.

Best wishes in the battle,

Deb

If cancer drugs are administered in correct dosages, and for the correct reason i.e. the doctor knows how and why it is used, these drugs will not wipe out the immune system completely, only reduce the cells that are gone awry.

First we tried Cyclosporine, which targeted the wrong immune-cells or macrophages (the T-cells), and I caught a heavy cold – the first one in several years.:(

Then, two years ago I had Rituxan + Fludarabine. They target the other kind of immune cells (B-cells) after I had been diagnosed MGUS, where the B-cells multiply in a cacerous way. This treatment hit home and reduced the B-cells to a normal level. I haven’t had more infections than before, which is to say:none.:D

Cancer drugs such as chemotherapy do suppress the immune system, that is why my doctor used cytoxan to suppress my immune system. What I cannot understand is that in the almost 5 years since I came down with CIDP I have not had a cold. Today I went to my water aerobics class, going in the hot tub before & after as I always do, & also went to a fully packed hockey game. Sunday I am hosting a shower for 30 people; I don’t isolate myself at all from people or crowds. Plus it is cold & flu season here in northern MN. Ironically, my CIDP was originally caused by a severe cold I had that had turned into walking pneumonia. First time in my life I had ever had that, wasn’t even prone to colds…

The way it was explained to me years ago when I got RH was that my immune system was attacking me and so is yours. The best thing was to suppress it or calm it down so it would stop doing that.
With GBS or CIDP or any Auto Immune problem, you want to calm your immune system down as much as is safe.
Boosting it will not do that and it could have a really bad effect of your body and make your symptoms worse.

[QUOTE=Pam H]Cancer drugs such as chemotherapy do suppress the immune system, that is why my doctor used cytoxan to suppress my immune system. What I cannot understand is that in the almost 5 years since I came down with CIDP I have not had a cold. Today I went to my water aerobics class, going in the hot tub before & after as I always do, & also went to a fully packed hockey game. Sunday I am hosting a shower for 30 people; I don’t isolate myself at all from people or crowds. Plus it is cold & flu season here in northern MN. Ironically, my CIDP was originally caused by a severe cold I had that had turned into walking pneumonia. First time in my life I had ever had that, wasn’t even prone to colds…[/QUOTE]
As I understand it your immune system is not weakened[but remains healthy] and is trying to do what it thinks should be done[pardon the personification].It mistakenly thinks your nervous system is something that should be removed.

Immune globulin does not weaken your immune system as I understand it[asIsaid before] it just confuses it. When you take Immune globulin you are receiving huge amounts of antibodies from thousands of people therfore in each infusion you recieve enough antibodies to kill almost any illness that may invade yor system.Hence you hardly ever get sick.

[QUOTE=gordo]As I understand it your immune system is not weakened[but remains healthy] and is trying to do what it thinks should be done[pardon the personification].It mistakenly thinks your nervous system is something that should be removed.

Immune globulin does not weaken your immune system as I understand it[asIsaid before] it just confuses it. When you take Immune globulin you are receiving huge amounts of antibodies from thousands of people therfore in each infusion you recieve enough antibodies to kill almost any illness that may invade yor system.Hence you hardly ever get sick.[/QUOTE]
From my understanding of it, IVIG does as you say and injects large numbers of T-cells from numerous donors, the lymph nodes see this large supply in the blood stream and halt T-Cell production, including the T-Cells that attack your myelin and that causes the interruption in progression.

With PP you are basically removing the T-Cells from your system and any stoppage of worsening is just until your T-Cell levels get back to normal.

Im not sure of how many different methods are used with the chemo drugs. I know about the immune system reboot where they use chemo to totally stop your immune system then stop giving the chemo and sometimes this allows the immune system to regain normal function.

Not sure of how all this plays out in all of the variants either.

At the risk of being boring I repeat”when you take immune globulin it confuses your immune system making it go away and sulk somewhere”the immune globulin being composed of antibodies collected from thousands of people takes over for your sulking immune antibodies and kills just about any virus or bacteria that enters your body since the immune globulin having been collected from thousands of people has antibodies for just about any virus or bacteria you come into contact with. That is why people takeing immune globulin hardly ever get sick.

mudbear,

Your improvement sounds great. The one thing I would add , especially to CIDP patients, is moderation. Everything from exercise, which we hear often, to vitamin taking. Overloading has no advantage, and overdoing it has only downside. Moderation is the key.

I just wish my immune system would moderate and stop attacking me. (Thought for the Day)

You all have a great day !!