Autoimmune

Anonymous
July 17, 2008 at 4:44 am

Since I work with children with autoimmune diseases, I thought I might pipe in about infections and vaccinations. Some infections or vaccinations cause a non-specific turning on of the immune system as well as the specific response to the infection/vaccination. this can cause a flair in autoimmune diseases where the autoantibody is made more. One of my friends who is a pediatric neurology researcher at the same hospital where I work advised me to not do ward service this last winter because of the GBS diagnosis, the fatigue and trouble walking, and exposure to lots of sick kids (who are frequently too young to cover their mouths when they cough, etc). She was worried about exacerbation of the GBS or potential “conversion” to CIDP. The immunologists for the children DO recommend to be careful because the risk of flaring their autoimmune diseases with infection or immunizations until all that has “settled down” and the “immune system has reset/rebalanced itself. The time to this is going to vary for each person as well as whether ornot they flare with a new stimulus.
WithHope for cure of these diseases.

autoimmune

Anonymous
February 7, 2007 at 6:44 pm

I was very interested to see the list you posted of autoimmune diseases – of those listed , my eldest son has CIDP, my mum has Graves disease and pernicious anaemia, and one of my 14 year old twin sons was diagnosed 4 months ago with with cystoid macular oedema and uveitis. This seems like an awful lot of autoimmune responses in 2 generations.