Autoimmune

I digressed. I was writing about autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases occur when the body’s healthy tissues and cells attack themselves. It is an overreaction of the immune system. These good and healthy tissues and cells are considered to be harmful so the immune system in turn destroys them. Autoimmune diseases are generally treated with immunosuppressants. Unfortunately, these drugs may suppress your entire immune system, not simply the targeted cells. Ulcerative Colitis is an autoimmune disease in which the good cells in the colon are destroyed by themselves, causing inflammation and ulcerations.

The only “cure” for ulcerative colitis is removal of the entire colon. This was very confusing to me. I did not understand why they could not remove only the diseased portion of the colon. It was then explained to me that because ulcerative colitis is autoimmune, if only the diseased portion is removed the ulcerative colitis will then continue to attack the remaining colon. And we would be right back where we started. Suddenly, it all started to make sense…