Autoimmune diseases are those in which the defense mechanisms of the organism enlarge the organism itself leading to its deterioration. The mechanisms by which this damage occurs are linked to the production of what we call autoantibodies.
The consequences usually involve autoimmune diseases of the thyroid, intestine, skin, joints, kidney or salivary and lacrimal glands, etc. Because it is a disease as frequent as it is varied, the symptoms are multiple, and are often associated with joint pain and skin lesions.
More symptoms
Each of these autoimmune diseases is associated with a specific pattern of autoantibodies and its symptoms will therefore depend on this. These can be multiple, as we have already mentioned, because these are varied diseases, although arthralgias and skin lesions are common. The specificity of the autoantibodies produced will define the symptomatology of the disease.
Treatment
There are today multiple treatments aimed at suppressing this production of autoantibodies and modulating the activity, or even suppressing if necessary the excessive activity of the immune system.
These treatments will depend on the specific diagnosis of the disease. Their main objective is to suppress their activity. Once this has been achieved, the dose can be decreased or even changed to less potent immunosuppressants in order to keep the case inactive.
In recent years new drugs, called biologics, have appeared that effectively modulate immune activity and are specific for these diseases.