Quote:
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Originally Posted by Not Afraid
Autoimmune diseases are illinesses where your own body starts producing natural chemicals that attack your body by mistake.
Other autoimmune diseases include:
Fibro Myalgia
Lupus
Chronic Fatigue Syndrom
Multiple Sclerosis
Rheumatoid arthritis
But there are many, many more.
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... including Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Perpera (ITP.) This is my mother's auto-immune disease. If she were not taking steroids for it, her immune system would be, in essence, consuming all of her blood cells. It still is, but instead of having between a normal 200 and 500 part-per-(billion?) count, she's having a good day if it's above 50. This causes extreme exhaustion and fatigue, bleeding from mucous membranes, and other internal bleeding.
There is no cure for ITP. It's idiopathic; they don't know what causes it. It is not genetic. There are links between use of blood thinners and auto-immune diseases but no concrete research has been done. Mom's been on blood thinners since 1979.
Few ITP patients have lived longer than ten years with the disease. Generally, patients die from complications from the steroids, not from internal bleeding; addiction to steroids requires a continual raising of the steroid level. Possible complications include: diabetes, high blood pressure, water retention, weight gain, changed appetite, general fogginess and memory loss, loss of vision, arthritis, and cancer.
In the eight years Mom has had ITP, she's had all of these side effects.