can arthritis be contagous?? passed from one to another??? thanks
NO!!!!!!!!!
dAVIE...IT SEEMS YOU ARE SOOO NEW ABOUT THIS AND YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RA SO, TRY TO GO TO ANOTHER FORUM WHERE OTHER SENIOR USERS CAN CHAT WITH YOU AND TELL YOU EVERYTHING ABOUT RA BUT IT IS NOT CONTAGOUS
This forum has quite a few senior members who have dealt with RA for many years. Just post your questons and I'm sure you will get good answers.
Have you been diagnosed yet? Or was that just a general question?
Good Luck
Nini
I agree, this forum is very helpful and we will help with anything we can. But, nope, can't catch it!Davie, please don't feel uncomfortable asking any question here. That's what this forum is all about!
Some folks do feel that their RA began after a viral or bacterial infection. That doesn't mean that you could transmit the disease to someone else, or that you caught it from someone else.
A great deal of research still must be done to determine what the cause or causes of RA are. There is definitely a genetic component to the disease, but what the triggers are is not really known.
I hope I haven't really confused you. I'm sure there are other's here who can state it better!
Welcome to the forum - We're glad your here!
Well, actually, that's the ,000 question. No one knows what causes arthritis, although it is known there is a genetic factor, and much anecdotal evidence points to a focal infection being the source, or trigger, of origin. Some people also believe stress is a factor. My beloved boyfriend came down with adult onset asthma about 4 months before I developed full blown RA. I believe more in the infection theory than the autoimmune theory, and the infection theory is the belief that an original infection ifests your body with mycoplasmas, which then hide in your tissues and white blood cells, and release a waste which is an allergen some people (arthritics) are allergic to. There are many hundreds of kinds of mycoplasmas, and coincidentally the types implicated in RA are the same ones implicated in asthma. Circumstancial? I don't know.IS OK DAVIE TO ASK...IM SORRY IF YOU HAVE ..JUST ASK YOUR DOCTOR AND DO SOME BLOOD TESTS SO YOU CAN BE SURE ...OK?
KISSES AND GOOD LUCK
I don't think so Dave. I've had RA for 13 years and no one in my family has any signs or symptoms of it at all. Keep asking questions, it's the only way to get the answers.Hi Davie,
I'm more with GoGo on this. My rare brand of RA came on after my brother developed an exceedinly rare infection in his vertebrae and my husband got some weird form of diabetes that may possibly be late onset adult autoimmune. Hmmmm. Since I've been diagnosed my sister-in-law has been diagnosed with regular RA and my other brother, her husband, has been complaining of 'pains'. Hmmmm, again.
When I was first diagnosed I was running arround like a chicken with my head cut off trying to explain to any doc I saw that this was from some sort of 'focal infection' like GoGo said - in my case an abscessed tooth. The one doc that I do respect, an OB/Gyn told me that I may be on the right track because if it was an infection (like Lyme) then it would hit each person differently because of thier genes. IE for my husband it would be his AI diabetes and for me PRA.
Interestingly we had all been camping together. Hmmmm. I had the best Lyme test out there (Igenex) because the CDC admits their western blot is 'flawed' - but came up negative. So, I do NOT have Lyme. The problem is there is something like 200 mycoplasma and only like 5 tests and the tests are highly unreliable. That and the little buggers are tricky - we joke that they take a vial of blood and hope that one of them swims in. I had all the mucoplasma tests and only tested positive for strep but knew I also had been exposed to the c. pneumonia. That test came up negative - but 7 months into AP therapy managed to get a hellacious case of - you guessed it - walking pneumonia. Again, hmmmmm.
Have you and your GF been camping? Dumb question, I know, but many of the Lyme people believe that their RA/Lupus is sexually transmitted. I think the name of the board to check for that is Lymenet.org. GoGo - jump in, do I have the board right? If you can't find it - run a search on www.Roadback.org for Lyme and see if you can get the correct page. There are quite a few Lymies posting on there so they might be able to point you in the right direction and tell you where to go to get tested. The Roadback will also help your GF.
Pip
I think I'm split down the middle in my opinion. But I'm like this with every immune disorder. I honestly think there are two types of everything. The kind you "got" from bacteria, virus, etc etc whatever -and the kind you were "just born with" (hereditary) because it seems to be a 50/50 shot with people who are treated with anti-biotics. And this is true of several immune disorders. I have RA, and I'm 99.9% sure it's just hereditary. My mom has it, and her dad has it.....seems pretty safe to say! My b/f has Crohn's, and now his mom has it, and there is an INCREDIBLY strong suspicion that his grandmother had it as well. When he was first diagnosed they tried *everything* to treat him, and only the typical Crohn's drugs help - not anti-biotics (which is also a HUGE theory in the crohn's community, and makes soooo much sense for some people) So that's what I think. LoL But I certainly don't think it's "contagious" either way.RA is not contagious, but some families seem prone to autoimmune disease so it is thought there is some genetic predisposition. My brothers have autoimmune diseases, but different ones than I do. My daughter also has an autoimmune disease, but not the same one. I think they can be triggered by stress, infection etc. I got sick shortly after a surgery that resulted in serious infection and long-term antibiotic treatment and also about that time started a stressful job. Daughter got sick after having her hep immunizations and it is now thought that this vaccine may trigger scleroderma in children who may have a genetic tendency for autoimmune problems.
So... no, not contagious, but some families seem prone to it. Hope that helps.
Laker
Except we don't have RA in my family.
I think I agree with my OB. The genes are the weak link. You don't have the gene for RA but you have the one for Lupus - you end up with Lupus. Hubby with the same source of infection as you, say mycoplasma, and he gets what gene he has that's weakest. That would also explain people with differing AI diseases being common to people living together - ie hubby and wife, BF & GF but not necessarily immediate blood relatives. But once you're infected, have kids together, then you pass the myco's on to them. Theirs may or may not kick on - that would depend on other mitigating factors like stress, diet etc.
Hope this sounds OK - have to run!
Pip
i have psoriatic arthritis, a brother has the same, a sister with rheumatiod arthritis,a sister with diabetes, and another brother with asthma, my mom has fibromyalgia. All considered autoimmune, but how does it decide wether to get you by ra,pa,diabetes etc. I have heard that in alot of cases when you have one autoimmune disease you are more likely to get another.
kel
Hi, I go with the it isn't contageous, (like the flu), but it is inherited, so our children are at risk. My son swore he 'had it' , was achy all over, but it went away for him?! Someday he may get it. SarahKel -
I'd say it depends - did the AI diseases all come on suddenly like in my family? Or over years and years?
I think of it as a 'war'.
You get some sort of microbial infection that is able to hang out in your white blood cells. Lymphocytes? (Truly, I NEED my files!!!) The cells get 'overloaded' for want of a better word. Years ago I heard this radio broadcast by this author who was being interviewed. He said every toxin you ever were exposed to is still in your body. People make a big mistake in thinking 'just lose weight' but in reality all that does is concentrate the toxins into a smaller area and viola! you are now sick. Somewhere in this mess is the name of that book that I wanted to read a decade or more ago. LOL NOW it's really important to read it.
Anyway, in some of my recent research I saw some studies that made me think that viral/bacterial infections are the same. We get sick, they are in the cells, we get better, but vestiges of the microbes are still there. That, in theory, is why you can get Shingles decades after having Chicken Pox as a child.
So, my theory is...you get sick with AI disease A, usually something minor like thyroid or vitiligo. Then you get another disease. And another. Because you never dealt with the first disease in a way that stops the progression. Does this make sense? As the body tries to fight back it sacrifices something it does not need as much. Like in a war - the weakest battalion for want of a better term. But, with one battalion down it's easier to lose another and another until we get something really bad...like the Big C. Like Lymphoma or BC.
Many of these diseases are almost parasitic in nature - you can live a long time with this stuff - and the microbe can too.
Anyway, that's my theory.
You're milage may vary. :-)
Sarah -
we have genes we pass on to our children but he may not get what you have, or he may get something completely different. It depends on which genes present in him and some things skip generations. He could have immunity from some great, great, great grandparent generations back. All I know is they ran some genetic tests on me and something is 'odd' - I don't have something they thought I should. That could be good. I just need to find out what exactly was so odd about my bloodwork. It was still at the time I wasn't listening to anybody because I was so scared. :-)
Pip
So pip, why do some people just get one AI disease? One only, and it doesn't seem to get any worse, or any better. Not everyone gets a pile on of AI disorders. I really don't see why it isn't logical that there might be more than one cause to these things. Really, it makes sense.Hey Katie!
It could be. But it's my fear and what I'm trying to avoid. I look at some of the lines on the bottom of these posts and see diagnosis after diagnosis and it scares the bejezus out of me. I just think it's a heck of a lot easier to undo &/or beef up the immune system in the beginning rather than after multiple things. Not that that's impossible - just a heck of a lot easier.
And...(you knew there'd be an 'and', didn't you) I think the key is in my diagnosis. This PRA seems to be different than most other AI diseases in that it has a spontaneous remission rate of of up to 50% according to what little research has been done on the Palindromic people. I've read in multiple studies, for both PRA and other AI diseases, that NONE of the other AI diseases has that HUGE amount of a remission rate. All other AI diseases seem to be uner 1% in their remission rates. The question is "WHY?"
I'd guess either we have some sort of gene that allows our bodies the ability to fight off this disease or some enzyme that does the same thing. I'm betting on an enzyme because the Koreans have isolated a different set of genes in PRA people.
This is soooo important because, like with diabetes, it would be quite easy (as these things go) to synthisize an enzyme or chemical like insulin that would help beef up the immune system so that the body was able to rid the body of the intrcellular infection by itself. Research into something like this would be Nobel Prize winning because it would be able to work on ANY AI disease.
But, as far as I can tell, NOBODY is even looking into this. Almost every study or newspaper artivle I've read all seems to working on 'therapies' for the symptoms of the disease. Some of these articles even state in no uncertain terms "well, the patient will have to take this medicine for life but it will ease the symptoms dramatically."
Which takes me back to some of my other posts - there's too much money for the drug companies in keeping us ill.
Pip
I only have RA. It is literally the only thing wrong with me and has been for the last 13, possibly 14 years. So I guess I don't fit into your theory of AI diseases. I also am not as cynical about the drug companies as you, maybe because my closet friend has cancer and uses the "wonder" drug Gleevec. It has totally beat back the leukemia.