Sjorgens and Heart Block

[Device Guy]

I am a clinical engineer for an implantable device company and have years of experience with adult implants. However, I was just involved in a pacemaker implant in a 1 week old child with Sjorgens Syndrome. The patient had experienced 2nd and 3rd degree heart block at birth. In doing a web search for "sjorgens", most hits led me to sites for Lupus or connective tissue disease. What is Sjorgens Syndrome and what exact effect is it having on this childs heart? What might be the long term prognosis for the childs heart?

[CCF-M.D.-CRC]

Dear device guy,
Sjorgens syndrome is an autoimmune disease similar to Lupus and may be seen in conjunction with Lupus or other autoimmune diseases.  It is characterized by dry eyes and dry mouth.  Myositis (heart inflammation) is only rarely seen with this disease and heart block is not usually associated with it.  I have never seen a case in a newborn.  Usually it is the mother of the child with heart block that has the autoimmune disease and usually it it Lupus.  I would wonder if it is not the mother who has the condition and if she does not also have Lupus in addition to the Sjorgens?

[pikamom]

Lupus can attack the heart as well as the kidneys and other organs. I was tested extensively for lupus recently as I've had interstitial cystitis for 11 years and now started also having arthritis in my hands and tachycardia/angina. My results were only weakly positive ANA with a speckled pattern and elevated sed rate. The last time I was in the hospital with my heart the cardiologist drew so much blood for cultures and I never asked why (I had a fever with a very abnormal EKG) and I'm wondering if he thought I had myocarditis. My cultures apparently came back negative and I'd forgotten about it, but now that I think about it, myocarditis in lupus would not be from an infection but from the immune system attacking the body. I'm still wondering if I don't have lupus even though the tests they ran for it were negative or only weakly postitive.