--that most rheumatologists are familiar with the anti-nuclear antibody vasculitic/connective disorders, they are not often familiar with a lot of the other autoimmune possibilities, even things like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and certainly not with a lot of the autoantibodies to components of central and peripheral nerve (many have not heard of Purkinje, GM1, GD1, anti-sulfatide class antibodies, for example). Then again, many neurologists haven't heard of these, either.

I personally find the whole field of autoimmunity fascinating, given that the leading assumption for the cause of my acute-onset body-wide small fiber neuropathy was/is autoimmune molecular mimicry (I've done a LOT of reading on the topic over the years; moreover, my wife works in development for the SLE [Lupus] Foundation, and I get to see a lot of the research papers coming out of there, as well as related ones).

One of the aspects of the gender differences in autoimmune condition occurrence I've become aware of, and that ties in with Mrs. D's hormonal/pregnancy musings, is that the gender imbalance in occurrence is much more pronounced during the childbearing years. For pediatric patients (though they more rarely show autoimmunity) and for the elderly, the gender imbalances are no where near as wide. For lupus, for example, there's about a 9:1 female/male ration before age 50, but after 50 the ratio reduces rapidly until above 65 it's more like 2:1. This pattern also seems to happen in MS (the usually given 3:1 female preponderance also drops with age) and with things like psoriasis and Hashimoto's. One wonders if post menopause the factors that predispose females to autoimmunity become muted and that results in the ratios becoming more even.