Autoimmune Ear Disorder

Can someone please explain why a positive response to steroids is an indicator of an autoimmune disease?


This discussion is related to Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease?.

[ENTMD]

That isn't necessarily true.  Autoimmune disease typically will respond to steroids, but so will other things.  In other words, a positive response to steroids does not necessarily mean that the condition is autoimmune.

Autoimmune diseases are conditions where the body's immune system goes after itself.  For whatever reason, the immune system gets confused and things that the body's own tissues are foreign.  Steroids suppress inflammation and therefore suppress the autoimmune response (and the immune response in general).