EBV & AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS

[mercygracious]

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW MANY OF YOU OUT THERE THAT HAVE AN AUTOIMMUNE DISORDER ALSO HAVE EBV?  JUST CURIOUS.

[PlateletGal]

Hey Laura,

I agree. It is very confusing and complicated because there are so many viruses appear to be associated with various chronic illnesses. I'm sure most members here haven't heard of "mycoplasma" infection, but perhaps it is time to start some new health pages in here on that ?   ; ^)   Thank goodness there are treatments for these infections and many patients with various autoimmune conditions have successfully treated their condition with either antibiotics or natural formulas that kill these infections.

I just posted a health page in the EBV forum (and here... it's crossing over) on this.

Do you happen to have that link from The New England Journal of Medicine ?

[laura1967]

Hey Plateletgal! Fancy meeting you here....LOL

I am a Hashimoto's Autoimmune Thyroid patient.....started with Lymes Disease and Activated Epstein-Barr Virus twice! STarted when I was a kid and reactivated 5 yrs ago.
Was diagnosed this past couple of years with hypothyroidism which was caused by Hashi's.

The New England Journal of Medicine has a write up of the studies done showing that Epstein-Barr and other viruses, bacteria, mycoplasma's are causitive factors in developing Autoimmune diseases.

Just goes to show you that you need to find out WHY you have the disorder not just accept and ignore. Most people don't push to find out why and dig further.

[PlateletGal]

P.S. ~ HHV-6 is a virus, like Epstein Barr Virus, that many people test positive for. However, in MS and CFS patients.... we seem to have high frequencies of this virus and many CFS researchers believe HHV-6 plays a role in both of these conditions.

[PlateletGal]

I answered yes only because I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the last decade or so, I've had a positive ANA titer.

This is a theory as to why 25% of CFS patients have a positive ANA titer and "some autoimmune problems" and/or overlapping autoimmune diseases:

"When mycoplasmas exit certain cells, such as synovial cells, nerve cells, among others that can be infected, they can stimulate autoimmune response. Our recently published studies demonstrated a possible link between mycoplasmal infections and CFS and FMS, since we found high frequencies of mycoplasmal infections in these patients."

~Garth Nicolson, Ph.D.

source:  http://www.immed.org/illness/fatigue_illness_research.html