Reply To: Daughter with GBS later catogorised to CIDP and new lne of treatment

Without getting too technical, the reason puberty is mentioned as a possible time line for remission is that at birth and puberty the thymus gland is the largest. At this time the immune system re-configurates and the t-cell receptors have a chance to do their job. People use the term you out grow the illness, such as allergies, it is not that you are out growing your allergies, your system just rebooted. By the time we are 50, the thymus gland has shrunk so much it is pretty much non existant thus making it harder to go into remission. That would explain why children are said to have the best chance of recovery. Since we have had this some 6.5 years ago I personally have only read one article that actually gave statistics. Personally, I did not really take anything conclusive from the article regarding a time line. The results were all over for all different ages which pretty much blows a hole in the thymus gland theory. For instance, there was one patient in early twenties who had it 3 years and went into remission, a few 50 to 60 y/o patients were 5-7 years on ivig and a 70 y/o was on ivig for 10 years. I will say that if I remember correctly the study was in early 2000. Research on cidp and the way statistics are gathered regarding treatment type and duration have changed. As well diagnositic criteria has changed significantly, even since we had it. In my opinion, once we stopped thinking about when we were going to get better and just continued on with life and incorporated cidp into our life as a part of it, we were able to relax and deal with things better. Honestly that took about 3 years. this August will be 7 years.