Aussie - that episode was on here last fall -and yes - anyloid affects many systems... theres a good site www.amyloidosis.org - that trys to be upbeat and has descriptions of types, resrouces for tretments, survivor and in memorium stories, etc... I'm currently going thru testing for amyloid- its so rare its very difficilut to find a doctor thats knows more then vaguely what is it - never mind does treatment for it (depending on type, there are 3 main types; primary, secondary, and inherited) and the end resutls can look just the same (usually causes organ failure - multiple or singular - and can hide from docs for years) you can have deposits anywhere in your body (its a protein that attacks and organ and shuts it down... its also often seen with Multiple Mylenoma... if the type can be determined of the amyloid - and the patient isnt too sick by that point then different therapies are attemptedl like analogous stem cell transplant with high dose chemo, then organ transplant as needed, for secondary really just treating the primary cause, inherited - if caught early enough initially a liver transplant (the liver in the case of most inherited versions is producing the defective enzyme)- then other transplants as needed... they have really only been trying to treat this disease for the past 15-20 years - used to just always be considered fatal.... so we'll see in the future here if these therapies are helping...

One factor that is seen in almost all cases is severe peripheral neruopathy and gastropareiss (of which I have both -along with cardio-myoathy which is also one of the organs it loves to attack and I hve that too - soon wll have my insides whittled away in little chunks to try to see if it is lurking.... no one test can either find it or determine the type (or conclusively rule out) - unless one gets very very lucky.... again, it often takes years to diagnose..... (I've a positive biopsy in the past but when asked for second opinion it was iffy on reading the specimen - so they continue to hunt)

The rate right now of incidence is believed to be 8 in a milion people - (but probably cases are never diagnosed - the person dies from renal or heart failure and no autopsy done - thus never found).... but if something that rare can make it to the screen (and House is rated thte number watched show by men (and lots of us girls love it too) - I thnk we should be able to get PN itself that affects so many more featured at some point too!!!!!!!!