Hi all,

How many MSers have family members who've had psoriasis, rheumatic fever, or other diseases?
Is this a so-called "genetic marker" for those of us with MS or neuro sxs?

Any information shared would be greatly appreciated...

My mother had Hasimoto's thyroiditis......

I have Hashimoto's and my mother was Hypothyroid. I don't know if she ever had an antibody test but I'm sure that's what she had. My sister is Hypo with Hashi's as well and has some degree of arthritis.

No one in my family has ever had MS that we know of and I discussed this with my endocrinologist on my last visit. I may be slightly paraphrasing here but basically he said "What you inherited was a tendency for your body to make antibodies against itself".

Hrm, if you count arthritis in this, then yes, my family members have a history of arthritis. Otherwise, no AI conditions that I have been made aware of. I'm the first in my family that is aware of having MS.

My personal belief is that if you go far enough most of us do have MS in the family or at least other autoimmune disorders like Lupus, RA etc.

I have one third cousin who has MS. (dad's cousin's daughter...from my dad's mothers side of the family)

I have one aunt who has rheumatoid arthritis (dad's younger sister)

My dad's brother had a viral infection that damaged most of his heart. He died of pancreatitis while waiting for a transplant...his wife told me that he also had some sort of autoimmune disorder that I cant remember the name of that made him susceptible to the heart problem...along with diabetes (diabetes was probably triggered by the heart problem)

I have a first cousin on my mom's side that has life threatening allergies. His niece also has life threatening allergies. My mom has an allergy to bees that she has a bee sting kit for. (we need to get her Epi-Pen Rx refilled)

I guess I have the double whammy of weird auto-immune stuff from my family. I also have a genetic birth defect (dad's side of the family, probably from his dad) that affects my connective tissue (my achilles tendons are not attached to where they're supposed to be. The tendons are shorter than they should be, and are weaker and easily torn...that's probably going to be a problem if my spasticity gets worse)

The connective tissue defect may or may not affect the autoimmunity. There isnt much known about it, other than the fact that it's associated with Glaucoma and glomerulonephritis (both can be caused by autoimmune disorders) My kidneys are healthy, and other than the optic neuritis, my eyes are fine. I still have a better than normal optic nerve according to my opthalmologist. (which is weird, because when I've had ON, I can barely see out of whatever eye is affected, but he still says I have a strong optic nerve...that may have explained why I could see and read road signs a couple of minutes before my parents could when I was little)

If the birth defect could have been the only thing wrong with me, I'd have been happy. (it hadnt given me any problems other than a ruptured achilles tendon about 8yrs ago) I'd love to give the MS back to wherever it came from.

Actually, this is probably worth bringing up in such a thread.

My mother's mother who passed away this past March at age 87 lived a good part of her life in incredible pain. My mother believes she had something similar to fibromyalgia, but doctors never did figure out what the cause of her pain was, or how to treat it.

It's sad, but as my mom said, "She was elderly Laura, doctors didn't want to invest their resources into trying to figure it out".

She passed away from a heart attack, and as a result, no autopsy was completed. Shame really... now I am left wondering what it was that really and truly was affecting my grandmother. For all I know, she had some crazy AI condition (probably the case), but I'll never know now.

My family has a lot of autoimmune diseases in it, and I've got it coming from both sides.

My mom and grandmother (dad's mom) had MS. My brother and grandfather had psoriasis. There's RA in the mix too.

Endometriosis also seems to run amock among the females in my family, and the medical community has just realized it's probably also auto-immune in nature.

Can you say that I have to fill out almost two pages of stuff when docs ask for my family medical history? LOL.

This is so sad! I'd bet not all that uncommon either.

It's probably not uncommon at all no. It's a shame. Really, now I am left wondering if grandma maybe had scaring on her brain or spine suggestive of multiple sclerosis. It's quite possible!

I'm left with 2 good feelings after her passing. She donated hundreds of dollars annually to charities, one of the biggest donations being to MS research, and she was aware of my MS diagnosis before she passed on (just barely.. I was diagnosed March 5th, she died Easter Sunday the same month/year).