[Erin524]

Found this on my local newspaper's (The Omaha World~Herald) website.


"First, asthma cases shot up, along with hay fever and other common allergic reactions, such as eczema. Then pediatricians started seeing more children with food allergies.

Now experts are increasingly convinced that a suspected jump in lupus, multiple sclerosis and other afflictions caused by misfiring immune systems is real..."

The rest of the article can be read here.

[CayoKay]

that was very interesting, Erin, thank you for posting it.

I didn't know there was a surge in MS happening... although I *did* know about the odd little fact that MS occurs more readily in areas with HIGH sanitation.

and I was unaware that type I Diabetes was actually an immune disorder... (my mom had type II, and I never researched type I), and this news came out *after* I moved to the jungle, and I guess I sorta missed it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus

I found this part of the piece you posted to be particularly fascinating, along with the tidbit that more than HALF of Americans now have at least one allergy!

wow!

Although hay fever, eczema, asthma and food allergies seem quite different, they are all "allergic diseases" because they are caused by the immune system responding to substances that are ordinarily benign, such as pollen or peanuts.

Autoimmune diseases also result from the body's defense mechanisms malfunctioning. But in these diseases, which include lupus, MS, Type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease, the immune system attacks parts of the body such as nerves, the pancreas or digestive tract.

this fascinates me, as I recently (last November) ended up in the hospital with a severe allergic reaction to the local fire ants.

it took the doctors a while to figure it out, because... they USUALLY only see this kind of blistering, swelling, and hives in little CHILDREN... so, I was the FIRST adult they'd seen with a case so bad.

anyway, it's interesting... that it's all so *connected*

[Erin524]

Maybe MS is just heck of an allergic reaction to something?

I dont know...hopefully they'll figure out exactly what all the causes for MS are sometime during my lifetime, because I really want to know. (I think there are several things that cause MS)

[Jensequitur]

I've often wondered if we're just getting better at diagnosing diseases like MS. Diabetes is definitely caused by our diets - they call it the Western diet, and it's responsible for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, just to name a few.

MS has been around for a long time, but we didn't know what it was. I think a lot of people with MS were diagnosed as hypochondriacs, because they didn't know or couldn't find what was wrong with them. My grandmother was thought of as a hypochondriac, and I've wondered if she had MS.

[Bearygood]

Erin, thanks for posting this interesting article. I personally don't buy the hyper-cleanliness thing as a catch-all but I absolutely think in some cases of autoimmune disorders, an allergic reaction might be at play as a trigger of some sort. This has come up in many other things I've read.

My MS became known to me after I discovered I'd been living with mold in my apartment for 7 years and ironically, my recent blood work showed allergies. I don't think I've been tested for that regularly but this is the first time it's ever come up. I am actually on a mission right now to take out the horrible carpet in my bedroom that was left by the previous tenant!

[Erin524]

Originally Posted by Bearygood

Erin, thanks for posting this interesting article. I personally don't buy the hyper-cleanliness thing as a catch-all but I absolutely think in some cases of autoimmune disorders, an allergic reaction might be at play as a trigger of some sort. This has come up in many other things I've read.

My MS became known to me after I discovered I'd been living with mold in my apartment for 7 years and ironically, my recent blood work showed allergies. I don't think I've been tested for that regularly but this is the first time it's ever come up. I am actually on a mission right now to take out the horrible carpet in my bedroom that was left by the previous tenant!

Maybe you'll luck out and find perfectly preserved wood floors under the carpet.

The house I grew up in had wood floors, I didnt know we had wood floors there until I was about 17 and and lifted up one of the carpet squares my dad had put in my sister's bedroom 18yrs before. Perfectly perserved wood floors. (in that room at least) We moved a year later. I'm not sure we told the new owner the floors were really nice maple floors under the carpeting. (my dad covered all the floors with carpet, and in the kitchen, he'd had linoleum installed! eek! The heathen!)

I keep hoping the woman who bought that house will put the place up for sale, so I can go back and see if she changed anything. (probably not, she still hasnt fixed the roof that got damaged in a storm in the early 1990s. I'm scared to see how she's let the rest of the house go inside)

I worked in a McD's restaurant for 8 years that had a wall in the back of the store (right next to the drive thru window I worked in every day) that was molding and crumbling, and allowing all manner of critters into the store. It had a serious mold, and mildew, and critter poo problem. (I'm now seriously phobic about those critters!)

The drains under the drink stations in the drive thru also had serious rotting problems. It smelled seriously bad, and we were constantly using the wet-vac to suck nasty water and pop up out of the drain because it backed up all the time while we were in the middle of a lunch rush. The floors for at least the last year that I worked there were always wet during a lunch rush. (ewwwwwww! I'm starting to have scary flashbacks of working those shifts! )

I wonder if I can go back and sue the place for mental trauma and the possibility they triggered my MS?? (probably not...quit working there in late '96, and there's no proof the moldy, crumbling walls triggered my MS) I dont know why I worked there for so long, with all the Boys Town kids trying to kill me at least once a year, and customers tossing fish sandwiches at me...

Strangely enough, occasionally I miss working there (because the management at the time was nice, and the owners were the sweetest people in the world)