Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Around eighty diseases, one pattern: tiredness, flares, morning stiffness — and they rarely come alone.
Also known as: autoimmunity · the immune system turns against the body’s own tissue · flares
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Autoimmune means the immune system has learned to treat the body’s own tissue like a foreign body. This is not one illness but a family of around eighty — and the family splits into two branches. One hits a single organ: the thyroid in Hashimoto’s, the pancreas in type 1 diabetes, the lining of the small intestine in coeliac disease, the pigment cells in vitiligo, the adrenal cortex in Addison’s. The other branch is systemic and keeps to no organ: lupus, Sjögren’s, scleroderma, the vessel inflammations. Between the two sit the joint diseases — rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, reactive arthritis.
Three things link nearly all of them: a tiredness that does not match the sleep; a course in flares rather than a straight line; and a morning stiffness that eases with movement instead of worsening. Often added: hair loss, slight rises in temperature, dryness of eyes and mouth, unintended weight loss, joint pain that moves around, swollen lymph nodes, and white or blue fingers in the cold.
The most useful point for an appointment: these illnesses rarely come alone. Having one makes a second more likely — Hashimoto’s and coeliac disease together, Sjögren’s alongside lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, vitiligo alongside a thyroid disease, type 1 diabetes alongside both. They also cluster within one family, though usually not the same illness but another from the group. In most of them women are clearly more often affected, and onset is often between twenty and forty.
On the values one rule saves much confusion: antibodies are a pointer, not a verdict. A weakly positive ANA is found in about 5 to 15 out of 100 entirely healthy people, and more often with rising age — on its own it makes no illness. Conversely a normal CRP rules nothing out. Antibodies are also often detectable in the blood years before the first complaints. A diagnosis therefore never comes from a single value but from pattern, course, examination and laboratory together — which is exactly why an orderly advance description of one’s own signs is worth so much.
Keeps to no organ and often starts in the joints, with no rash at all.
Dryness and tiredness; stands particularly often beside a second illness from the same group.
Organ-specific: the insulin-making cells. Starts with thirst, frequent passing of water and weight loss.
The bowel inflammations; they often bring joint, eye and skin signs with them.
The joints can start years before the skin — and in some the skin never follows.
The nervous system as target; flares with visual or sensory trouble or weakness.
On its own usually harmless; together with further signs a pointer to a systemic form.
Smoking raises the risk of several in this group and worsens the response to treatment. It is the single biggest lever a person holds themselves.
Lack of sleep and continuous strain are common flare triggers. That cures nothing, but it shifts how often a flare comes.
Preserves mobility and muscle. Weeks of resting does the opposite.
In this group several medicines and several supplements often run side by side. The calculator shows the routes on which they meet.
The most common first sign and the easiest to miss. What counts is not being tired but that sleep does not fix it.
Weeks with much, weeks with little. Being seen only on a good day describes a different illness than the one present — which is why the course is worth taking along.
It eases with movement. With wear and tear it is the other way round: trouble comes after use, not after rest.
Gritty eye, dry bread hard to swallow. Rarely mentioned unprompted because it does not sound like illness.
Thinner everywhere, no bald patches. It has many causes; here it is one building block among others, never proof on its own.
First white, then blue, red on warming. Also occurs alone, but is common in the systemic forms.
Together with tiredness this is the combination often taken at first for a stubborn infection.
A second autoimmune disease is more common than a first. Once one is found a second is often looked for — above all thyroid and gut.
The screening test of the systemic forms. Sensitive but not specific: weakly positive in roughly 5 to 15 of 100 healthy people. Titre and pattern say more than the bare word "positive".
A measure of inflammation often raised while CRP stays normal. That gap occurs regularly in several systemic forms.
A normal CRP rules nothing out. A sudden clear rise suggests an additional infection rather than a flare.
The thyroid is the most common second organ. It is checked alongside any autoimmune disease found, because it is easy to measure and easy to treat.
The gut partner. Important: the test only holds while gluten is still being eaten — leaving it out beforehand gives a falsely reassuring result.
Too few with no other explanation belongs to the picture, above all in the systemic forms.
Often low in autoimmune disease. Whether low is the consequence or part of the cause is open — it is measured anyway, since a deficiency alone causes tiredness and muscle pain.
Often low in coeliac disease and in lasting inflammation — for two quite different reasons.
Vegetables, fish, olive oil. In coeliac disease avoiding gluten is by contrast the treatment itself, not an add-on.