Has anyone here ever heard of HLAB-27+ gene marker? I was diagnosed with this in 2005. It seems that whenever I mention this auto-immune issue I have to doctors, they kind of look at me blankly. I don't imagine it's very common.
I was diagnosed by a rheumatologist via blood test. Apparently, whenever I have an infection in my body, this auto-immune response makes me feel like I have severe arthritis in all my moving joints. It comes on over a matter of a few days. I know how to deal with it now and how to know it's starting and the doc puts me on Prednisone for a while to deal with flares. But when I was first experiencing this, I was in such pain I could barely move, I had a high fever and I felt like death.
Another symptom is that I get ulcers in my mouth (that is actually my first alert that it's starting), then the skin on the palms of my hand starts thinning and peeling...never really itchy. And then randomly, I start having different joints start aching.
It is associated with seronegative spondyloarthropathies such as your reactive arthritis. It is not diagnostic of it but can be useful in determining future severity and chronicity of the your disease.
I have the HLA-B27 antigen and it is highly misunderstood by most doctors.
It is apparently associated with many autoimmune reactions, but most rheumatologists associate it Anklosing Spondylitis. This illness is multi-faceted--it affects joints, but also eyes, gastrointestional system, etc.
I have it and don't have AS, but am trying to figure out why I have a elevated sed, rate, low immuglobulin levels, that are not low enough for me to be a candidate for IGG infusions.
My symptoms keep changing. Go to the Ankylosing Spondylitis Association website. There are many women who have many different types of autoimmune illness, like endometriosis, sogjren's, fibromyalgia---all illnesses that there is little understanding of.
I can't find a doctor who can help me and it is very, very frustrating.
My immunological study shows I have a number of elevated cytokines and another shows I have high vulnerability to infections. TNF's are contraindicated with people who are at risk of high infection. Are our systems turned on by reactions to bacteria? This is not where the drug companies are headed.
