cottonsocks

An immune response is the body's defence to anything from outside the body (non-self) which may harm it. The word Autoimmune ( Auto=Greek= Self) is an abnormal immune response to *self *. Autoimmunity only occurs in people who are genetically predisposed to autoimmunity, rather than a specific disease. In other words they genetically carry the "predisposition" rather than the particuilar autoimmune disease. A person who has this, can have more than one autoimmune disease going on at the same time, and another family member have a totally different autoimmune disease. Again the predisposition may not have manifested in the family for generations (as in my own case), but somewhere in the past certain people in my family will have suffered with (any) autoimmune disease.

Enteropathy, means a disease of the intestinal tract. Any part of the inner body which comes into contact with the outside, such as the gut, has secretions which carry antibody. Antibodies are the "soldiers" of the defence system. In a predisposed person the autoimmune response can be stimulated, idiopathically= Spontaneous and for no reason, or by Gliadin =(wheat, the only food scientifically proven in the past 50 years, out of the endless food chain to stimulate a specific autoimmune disease) drugs and radiation. These are often referred to as enviromental factors. Fluids say from severe injury to the eye if leaked internally could also stimulate this response.

Autoimmune enteropathy is where there is gut disease caused by abnormal antibody in the gut. The autoimmune disease may have been stimulated by Gluten (gluten enteropathy) or by a dysfunction of the normal cell processes of the gut. The autoimmune response, produces abnormal antibodies called autoantibodies, and these autoantibodies target normal proteins in the body, causing damage to the tissues, as the autoantibody attacks and tries to destroy *self* tissues.

Quote from tiffani9 = "The bone marrow is actually what does the "attacking."

Well not really the bone marrow exactly.
All cells come from stem cells in the bone marrow. There are three main groups of cells which make up the immune system, and antibodies are are made in turn from one of these 3 groups called lymphocytes. These are white blood cells, and these fall again into two categories, B lymphocytes (which are made in the bone marrow, and produce the antibodies and T lymphocytes which are made in the thymus and can kill antigens directly. Antibodies (Immunoglobulins) fall into 5 groups IgA, IgG, IgM, IgE and IgD.
If a person has specific gluten enteropathy, (A biopsy is the only true way of finding out) , which has stimulated an autoimmune response causing Dermatitis Herpetiformis; removing the gluten from the diet will of course help and stop the inflammation in the gut etc. and the blistering and lesions may improve in the skin a little, but it will take a long time for the autoantibody deposits to get out of the skin. Autoimmune disease cannot be cured, it is part of the genetic make-up of people who have this predisposition. Autoimmune disease occurs in children as well as adults, however in Autoimmune bullous diseases of the skin it lasts usually about 3 years, and reaches a peak, then it usually burns itself out before/at puberty.
All autoimmune disease waxes and wanes in severity, there are often periods of remission, my own period of remission was 18 years! There are unlikely to be remission periods over the age of 45, the goal is to control the autoimmune disease to such a degree that one can tolerably live with it. All autoimmunity is being researched under the same umbrella, and the way forward is to discover exactly how these normal cell processes, the antibody and target antigens malfunction, within this abnormal response. In order to remove the genetic predisposition one would need a bone marrow transplant, which of course is too life threatning , especially as the manifestation of these conditions, ( if stimulated by drugs or non-self factors such as gluten) can be resolved to some degree, although the predisposition to autoimmune disease cannot be resolved nor will ever go away. Usually, especially in idiopathic autoimmune disease involving the skin, life-long maitenance doses of immunosuppressants are necessary. Please note that ANY Autoimmune Bullous disease ( an autoimmune disease which blisters the skin) can cause blindness, as it did to me.
If anyone is interested in further info; there are excellent sites on The Immune system itself.