Under attack
What you need to know when your immune system picks the wrong enemy
For the 2 million Canadians living with an autoimmune disease, it’s something they have to treat and manage daily. But for those who aren’t familiar with them, March has been designated National Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month to help raise awareness of these often debilitating, potentially life-threatening diseases.
Autoimmune diseases are those in which the immune system turns against the body it’s supposed to protect, attacking healthy cells and tissues. The 50 known autoimmune diseases can affect anybody, and they can strike at any age, including in infancy. Every organ in the body is a potential target. Perhaps the most well known of these diseases are type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and Crohn’s disease.
What causes someone to develop an autoimmune disease? “Why it happens has long been the source of questions and a lot of research,” says Dr. Evelyn Sutton, president of the Canadian Rheumatology Association and associate dean of under- graduate medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “What we do know is that, left unchecked, these diseases will destroy the organ being attacked—for example, the pancreas in type 1 diabetes or the lungs and spleen in rheumatoid arthritis.”
Because there are so many types of autoimmune diseases, getting an accurate diagnosis can be challenging because symptoms are wide-ranging and often mistaken for other illnesses. Symptoms for the diseases mentioned above can include extreme fatigue, vision problems, joint pain and mobility issues, among others.
Although there is no cure for these diseases, the goal is to manage them through immunosuppressive medications and complementary treatments such as physiotherapy, massage therapy and chiropractic adjustments. In some cases, it may even be possible to achieve remission, which can last for months or years.
Today, there are reasons to hope for an improved quality of life and a longer life expectancy. “We have a better understanding about these diseases, which has led to the development of wonderful new medications to treat them," says Sutton.