Myositis
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: Myositis

Nanya

Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 04:21 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Has anyone have any personal experience with condition? I know what the books say. I would like to hear what real people say.

Twiggyish

Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 06:45 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
No, I've never heard of it. What is it?

Misslibra

Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 09:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I didn't know what it was, so I did a search on Google and here is some info I got from one site.

Myositis

Myositis is the term for illnesses that involve chronic muscle inflammation ("myo" means muscle and "itis" means inflammation).

"Myositis" refers to several different illnesses, including polymyositis, dermatomyositis, and inclusion body myositis.

All forms of myositis involve chronic, or persistent, muscle inflammation. This muscle inflammation almost always results in weakness, and less often in heat, swelling, and pain of the muscles. Myositis can affect many parts of the body. Sometimes the joints, heart, lungs, intestines, and skin can become inflamed.

Some forms of myositis, like dermatomyositis ("dermato" refers to the skin), result in particular rashes over the knuckles, around the eyes, or sometimes in other parts of the body. Other forms of myositis occur in children. Some forms are seen with other connective tissues diseases, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Still other forms may occur in people with tumors. Rarely, myositis can occur in a single part of the body, such as one arm, one leg, or just the muscles that move the eye.

Incidence and risk factors
Myositis is a rare disease. In the United States, it is estimated that each year five to 10 out of every one million people get one of the forms of myositis.

Although myositis can affect people of any age, most children who get the disease are between five and 15 years of age and most adults are between 30 and 60. Like many other inflammatory diseases, most forms of myositis attack more women than men. The exception is inclusion body myositis, a form of myositis in which holes, called inclusion bodies, develop in the muscle fibers. This form affects more men than women.

Prognosis
Like other rheumatic diseases, myositis is unlikely to go away on its own. But with proper treatment and management, these chronic diseases can be brought under control.

Curability
At present, there is no cure for myositis. A person with myositis will need to manage the condition and to adjust to the changes it brings. This may involve continuing to take medicine and seeing a doctor regularly. It may also require changing some activities, especially during periods of increased pain and weakness. For most people with myositis, however, treatment of myositis is satisfactory, and they can lead productive lives. Myositis is more serious if it affects the breathing muscles, the heart, is combined with a tumor, or if certain autoantibodies are present. People with these complications will need to be monitored even more closely by their doctors.

Causes
We do not know what causes myositis. But because myositis has many forms, it probably has many causes. Some scientists think that myositis results when a person with a certain genetic background is exposed to particular chemicals, viruses, or other infectious agents.

Whatever triggers these diseases also results in abnormalities in the immune system. The immune system consists of groups of cells called lymphocytes that circulate throughout the body. In healthy people, these lymphocytes act as a defense force that produces substances that attack viruses, bacteria, and other agents of disease. But in many people with myositis, there is an abnormality in the immune system that results in the production of proteins called autoantibodies. Autoantibodies and some of the lymphocytes turn against the body's own tissues and may cause damage.

Because illnesses associated with autoantibodies are called autoimmune diseases, many doctors consider myositis to be an autoimmune disease. Some autoantibodies found in people with myositis are found in other autoimmune diseases, but a few special ones are only found in people with myositis. These are called myositis-specific autoantibodies. They seem to be useful in helping doctors predict the problems that some people might develop and how they might respond to treatment.

I don't know of anyone who has this condition. But are you suffering from it yourself ?

Nanya

Friday, October 18, 2002 - 01:22 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanx for your interest guys. I wish that I could chat with someone in THIS format who knew from their own experience..friend...family etc what to really expect. I don't really want "support group" stuff. I have recently been diagnosed. My treatment is complicated by the fact that I have diabetes.