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Autoimmune disorders
An autoimmune disorder occurs when a person’s immune system mistakenly attacks their own body tissues
An autoimmune disorder occurs when a person’s immune system mistakenly attacks their own body tissues such as the skin or joints considering them as foreign. Below are a few common autoimmune disorders:
- Addison’s disease: In Addison’s disease, patients have deficiency in the production of glucocorticoid hormones due to severe and insufficient functioning of the outer layer of the adrenal gland. This disease is relatively uncommon.
- Adult Still’s disease: It is a type of swelling arthritis that features fevers, rash, and joint pain.
- Agammaglobulinemia: It is related to hypogammaglobulinemia (antibody deficiency) and is manifested in a variety of immune deficiency disorders in which the immune system is compromised.
- Alopecia areata: It is a disorder which is characterized by patchy hair loss.
- Amyloidosis: It is a disorder in which abnormal proteins build up in tissues and organs.
- Ankylosing spondylitis: It is an arthritis of the spine where the spine loses its normal elasticity.
- Anti–glomerular basement membrane/Anti–tubular basement membrane nephritis: It is a disorder caused by autoantibodies that attack the walls of capillaries (small blood vessels) in the kidney.
- Antiphospholipid syndrome: It is also called as Hughes syndrome or sticky blood. It results in multiple miscarriages.
- Autoimmune hepatitis: It is a severe inflammatory autoimmune disease of the liver.
- Autoimmune inner ear disease: There is a progressive non–age-related sensorineural hearing loss.
- Autoimmune oophoritis: There is an autoimmune swelling of ovaries resulting in destruction, atrophy, and fibrosis with a loss of fertility and ovary hormonal production.
- Autoimmune orchitis: It is characterized by testis swelling and the presence of specific antisperm antibodies.
- Axonal and neuronal neuropathy: It is characterized by the loss of muscle function with absence of neurologic reflexes such as the knee jerk reaction, often causing respiratory failure.
- Behcet’s disease: Severe multisystem autoimmune disease involving swelling of blood vessels, called vasculitis, throughout the body. It causes sores in mouth and other parts.
- Benign mucosal pemphigoid: It is a severe autoimmune disease characterized by erosive skin lesions of the mucous membranes.
- Castleman disease: It is a disease of lymph nodes and related tissues. There’s an abnormal overgrowth of cells of the lymph system that is similar in many ways to lymphomas (cancers of lymph nodes).
- Celiac disease: People with this disease can’t eat gluten because immune system may damage their small intestine.
- Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy: This is an autoimmune disorder in which there is swelling of nerve roots and destruction of the myelin sheath (covering) over the nerves. This causes weakness, paralysis, and/or impairment in motor function, especially of the arms and legs. Sensory loss may also be present.
- Churg-Strauss syndrome: It is characterized by accumulated antibodies, swelling of blood vessels, and abnormal clustering of white blood cells. An allergic reaction or asthma may precede the syndrome’s development by several years.
- Cogan’s syndrome: There’s swelling of the eye with hearing problems and dizziness.
- Cold agglutinin disease: It is characterized by anemia caused by cold-reacting autoantibodies (a type of protein produced by the immune system).
- Crohn’s disease: It is an autoimmune bowel disease characterized by severe and persistent swelling of the lining or wall of the gastrointestinal tract.
- Dermatomyositis: It is an autoimmune muscle disease that involves swelling and skin rash.
- Devic’s disease: It is a condition that affects the spinal cord and the optic nerve (nerves that carry information regarding sight from the eye).
- Dressler’s syndrome: It is a condition which causes swelling of the pericardium (sac surrounding the heart).
- Evans syndrome: Immune system destroys the body’s red blood cells, white blood cells, and/or platelets.
- Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis or Wegener’s Granulomatosis: Swelling of blood vessels and other tissues are noted. This swelling limits blood flow to important organs in the body, potentially leading to long-term damage.
- Graves’ disease: It is an autoimmune thyroid disease that causes the thyroid gland to produce excessive hormones. Symptoms may include nervousness, weight loss, heart palpitations, and intolerance to heat.
- Guillain-Barre syndrome: It is a disorder that causes immune system to attack own peripheral nervous system, which nerves connect brain and spinal cord with the rest of your body.
- Hashimoto’s thyroiditis: Immune system attacks and destroys the thyroid gland.
- Hemolytic anemia: It causes the premature destruction of red blood cells.
- Immune thrombocytopenic purpura and thrombocytopenic purpura: It is a bleeding disorder. The immune system destroys platelets that are necessary for normal blood clotting.
- Juvenile myositis , including juvenile dermatomyositis and juvenile polymyositis: This is a group of life-threatening autoimmune diseases, in which the body’s immune system attacks its own cells and tissues.
- Lambert-Eaton syndrome: It is an autoimmune disorder in which faulty communication between nerves and muscles leads to muscle weakness.
- Multiple sclerosis: It is a nervous system disease that affects your brain and spinal cord.
- Myasthenia gravis: It is an autoimmune disease that causes weakness in the muscles; this happens because of a problem in communication between nerves and muscles.
- Palindromic rheumatism: It is characterized by sudden, multiple, and recurring attacks of joint pain and swelling, typically in the hands and feet.
- Pemphigus: It is a group of severe autoimmune skin diseases characterized by blister formations in the outer layer of the skin and the mucous membranes.
- POEMS syndrome (polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, monoclonal gammopathy, and skin changes): It is an autoimmune-related blood disorder that damages your nerves and affects many other parts of the body.
- Polyarteritis nodosa: It is a serious autoimmune-related blood vessel disease.
- Psoriasis: It is an autoimmune skin disease that causes itchy or sore patches of thick, red skin with silvery scales. Some people with psoriasis have psoriatic arthritis. It causes pain, stiffness, and swelling of the joints.
- Retroperitoneal fibrosis: It is a disorder that blocks the tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder.
- Rheumatoid arthritis: It causes pain, swelling, stiffness, and loss of function in joints.
- Sarcoidosis: It is an autoimmune disease that leads to swelling in lungs, skin, or lymph nodes.
- Schmidt syndrome: It is an autoimmune syndrome that commonly has the constellation of three diseases, namely, diabetes mellitus type 1, hypothyroidism, and adrenal insufficiency.
- Scleroderma or hard skin: There’s an abnormal growth of connective tissue.
- Sjögren’s syndrome: It causes dryness in your mouth, eyes, nose, throat, and skin.
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: It is an autoimmune disorder which affects multiple body systems, primarily kidneys and joints.
- Susac’s syndrome: Patients display personality changes, bizarre and paranoid behavior, impaired speech, confusion, headaches, and hearing problem.
- Takayasu’s arteritis: It affects the aorta (the largest blood vessel in the body) and its branches.
- Thyroid eye disease: Body mistakenly attacks the cells around the eyes.
- Tolosa-Hunt syndrome: It is characterized by severe and unilateral headaches with pain around the sides and back of the eye, along with weakness and paralysis of certain eye muscles.
- Type 1 diabetes: In type 1 diabetes, pancreas does not make insulin.
- Ulcerative colitis: It causes ulcers, in the lining of the rectum and end part of intestine.
- Undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD): It is systemic autoimmune disease. In UCTD, autoimmunity may cause the immune system to attack specific parts of the body resulting in a variety of problems.