And that was the inspiration for this post. The longer I am blogging, the more I learn and the more I have to learn about what seems like to me, the many autoimmune illnesses that are kissing cousins of ra. Yes, I know, what a lovely thought. More things to possibly have to worry about. But I am putting this information out there because so many of us have so many symptoms that just don't quite fit under that tidy one diagnoses we were given.
So here goes! Here are some of the kissing cousins of ra...
Medline Plus gives us the following examples of (kissing cousins of ra) autoimmune diseases:
- Addison's disease
- Celiac disease - sprue (gluten-sensitive enteropathy)
- Dermatomyositis
- Graves disease
- Hashimoto's thyroiditis
- Multiple sclerosis
- Myasthenia gravis
- Pernicious anemia
- Reactive arthritis
- Sjogren syndrome
- Systemic lupus erythematosus
- Type I diabetes
And if that isn't enough to digest, here are a few more that I recently found out about!
- Autoimmune hepatitis
- Autoimmune hypophysitis - in short this means your immune system is attacking your pituitary.
I have no doubt I have missed a few of our cousins out there. So if you know of any others, ask them to join this dysfunctional family through a comment.
