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Bullous Pemphigoid

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:33 am
by TwistedHelix
No, I've never heard of it either, but look at the drugs listed in the second link--curious, but I suppose treatments are bound to overlap,

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Dom.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:06 pm
by Lyon
Hi Twisted,
I created a webpage listing the diseases which are considered autoimmune a few months ago, so that one did sound familiar, but I didn't remember any specifics about it.

It's only human nature that people with MS are going to focus exclusively on MS and its outward symptoms, but I've seen firsthand that a general outlook towards all of the autoimmune diseases is invaluable.

After all, after over a hundred years of research it should be obvious that NONE of the autoimmune diseases are going to be cured by focusing exclusively on the outward symptoms of each of these diseases. On the other hand, if you find something that works far enough "back" in the immune system all of these autoimmune diseases are going to be cured simulaniously.

I got spanked on the MSWorld forum (before I got "BANNED FOR LIFE!!") for saying that these autoimmune diseases are "all the same damned disease", but when you look far enough back in the immune system, that is a reasonable assessment.

As you mentioned, we've seen treatments which overlap. Prednisone comes to mind because it's about the most effective anti-inflammatory we have and acts systemically so is used with other autoimmune diseases. That isn't a situation of interest because in the case of Prednisone, it's acting on something (inflammation) caused by the immune system and isn't doing anything to control the immune system itself.

I noticed the second link also mentions cyclophosphamide and that really is turning into an interesting situation. The use of cyclophosphamide seems to be all about strategy and this situation strategy seems to make all the difference in the world.

At lower doses cyclophosphamide seems to have been tried as an immune suppressant and in that regard evidently didn't shine. Someone posted a link to a recent study which showed that at low dosage it didn't offer benefit.

Used in high enough doses cyclophosphamide kills white blood cells very effectively and leaves the bone marrow unscathed. That is a very interesting situation because essentially it's simultaniously killing all of the myelin reactive T cells and the memory cells so that MS and evidently the memory needed to instruct naive cells to attack myelin, which is the makings of an effective one time treatment (unless you run into the circumstances which initiate autoimmune the process again).

Additionally, by simultaniously killing all of the white blood cells, it seems that HDC is also killing the self reactive T cells and memory cells for all the other autoimmune disease, which means that someone who has several autoimmune diseases would be rid of all of them simultaniously.

I need to find out more in this regard but it seems to be effective in all stages of the disease, which in itself would be a great thing.

Sorry about working my way off topic but I was geeked about HDC before but couldn't find info and now I'm geeked again!

Bob