Continuing from The Big Picture, a hypersensitivity reaction occurs when the immune system perceives something entering your body as foreign matter and attacks it, also hurting your body. An autoimmune disease is a hypersensitivity reaction plus.
Think of an autoimmune disease as having one or more hypersensitivity reactions as a component/components.
Comparison Chart
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Hypersensitivity Reaction[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Autoimmune Disease[/lgc_column]
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Just one event.[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]An ongoing problem.[/lgc_column]
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]You are not sick. Irritated, but not sick.[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]You are sick. [/lgc_column]
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Either easy or impossible to diagnose. [/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Difficult to diagnose.[/lgc_column]
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Clear triggers, e.g., pollen, wool, or other environmental substances [/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]What triggered this immune flare-up? Stress? Smoking? Doctors are unsure. [/lgc_column]
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]No cure. Sometimes can be systematically desensitized (nipped in the bud) . [/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]No cure. Cannot be systematically desensitized. [/lgc_column]
Both
Both have the same cause: heredity
That is, you have inherited your immune system, and your immune-system overreaction to foreign substances is at the root of your hypersensitivities.
Neither can be cured.
Both may respond to palliative treatment. Or not.
Both affect women more often than men.
Both affect old people more often than young people.
In the next Hypersensitivities Are Real post, my pot-smoking, map-making, gourmet cook friend, Michelle Lewis, will give you a harrowing and very graphic description of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Michelle and I are both Hypersensitives, but I have Type I allergies and hypersensitivities, and Michelle has RA, a cruel Type III autoimmune hypersensitivity disease.
Dr. Jean M. Bradt
Ph.D., Psychology, Loyola University of Chicago, 1988
