What are autoimmune diseases ?

Autoimmune diseases are those in which the defense mechanisms of the organism enlarge the organism itself, leading to its deterioration. The mechanisms by which this damage occurs are linked to the production of what we call autoantibodies.

The consequences usually involve autoimmune diseases of the thyroid gland , the intestine , the skin , the joints , the kidney or the salivary and lacrimal glands , etc.. Because it is a disease as frequent as varied, the symptoms are multiple, and are often associated with joint pain and skin lesions .

Each of these autoimmune diseases is associated with a specific pattern of autoantibodies and their symptoms, therefore, depend on it. These can be multiple, as we have already mentioned, because they are varied diseases, although arthralgias and skin lesions are common.. The specificity of the autoantibodies produced will define the symptomatology of the disease.

Today there are multiple treatments aimed at suppressing this production of autoantibodies and modulating the activity, or even suppressing if necessary the excessive activity of the immune system.

These treatments to be applied will depend on the specific diagnosis of the disease. Its main objective is to suppress its activity. Once this is achieved, the dose can be lowered or even switched to less potent immunosuppressants in order to keep the case inactive.

In recent years new drugs have appeared, called biological, that effectively modulate immune activity and are specific for these diseases.