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Autoimmune diseases cause the body to attack itself, resulting in varied symptoms. Common symptoms include fatigue, decreased resistance to diseases, chronic fever, pain, hair changes, weight changes, and mood changes. A doctor should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment.
There are a number of autoimmune diseases, and these conditions cause the body to mount an immune response to something it shouldn’t. In other words, the body turns on itself by attacking one or more body systems and treating them as foreign. Due to the fact that this can occur in different bodily systems, the common autoimmune symptoms can be varied and some can actually be opposite to others. However, it is possible to look at some symptoms and see them as things that can occur when an autoimmune disease is present, although the presence of these symptoms can indicate other diseases as well.
In almost all autoimmune diseases, people can suffer from fatigue or chronic tiredness. It may be difficult to get out of bed in the morning and normal activities may seem tiring. When this condition goes on for some time without getting better, even when people do things like improve exercise levels and diet, this is a symptom worth exploring. Fatigue can also be symptomatic of conditions such as heart failure, high blood pressure, or certain diseases that are not autoimmune in nature. Some people with high thyroid levels due to Graves’ disease may suffer in the opposite direction and be unable to sleep or have insomnia.
Another of the common autoimmune symptoms is decreased resistance to common diseases. While most adults can expect to get a few colds or viruses a year, a constant illness, where colds or viruses tend to occur much more frequently or almost always, can suggest a compromised immune system. Some people also get frequent infections, such as pneumonia or bladder and kidney infections. Not being able to recover quickly from common colds and viruses can also hint at trouble. Two well known diseases are indicated in frequent infections and these are lupus and HIV/AIDS.
Even without the presence of other diseases, the presence of chronic fever can be an autoimmune symptom. Alternatively, some people have problems with body temperature control in the opposite direction and feel cold all the time or have very cold hands and feet. This is especially true with conditions like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
Some common autoimmune symptoms that can relate to conditions like rheumatoid arthritis include pain and tenderness. There are a number of other diseases that can have this as a symptom as well. The pain can mostly be felt in the joints.
People with certain autoimmune diseases may notice changes in their hair: baldness or brittle hair may develop. Other common symptoms of the autoimmune disease could affect the skin with lesions, rashes, changes in texture or changes in coloration.
People with a developing autoimmune condition might have quite dramatic weight changes, losing or gaining quite a lot of weight. Sometimes even things like mood can change and developing depression is not uncommon. Most people usually think of autoimmune conditions as being related to adults, but in children one of the common autoimmune symptoms is stunted growth, especially in younger children.
There are many other autoimmune symptoms specific to each disease. One or two symptoms of a condition does not necessarily make a diagnosis. People who fear they have an autoimmune disease are best advised to talk to their doctors. Doctors can diagnose conditions (or rule them out) and help their patients find the best possible treatments.
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