Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...

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Damage to Sympathetic Nervous System

Kimhurts
Kimhurts

Anybody heard of an autoimmune disease damaging your sympathetic nervous system? My doctors are now mulling over this theory. It is just a theory. I don't think there is a way to test this. The have tested that my sympathic nervous system is faulty. I think they just can't prove causation. 

debRAinOC
debRAinOC
I'm in the middle of editing a book about dementia, and it seems like everything is related: the things that put us at a higher risk for dementia are the same things that put us at risk for other issues, including autoimmune disease and nervous system disorders. So while one may not directly "cause" the other, they may have the same underlying issues.

It's very difficult to prove causation. I'd be interested to see what your doctors find out. (Maybe you'll be the subject of a paper.)
buddhacat
buddhacat
Kim, what aspect of your sympathetic nervous system is faulty, according to your doctors, and what testing did they do? There's a lot of territory and complex relationships involved.

Parkinson's is often considered to be autoimmune disease, and there's quite a bit of literature about PD affecting.sympathetic function. Also, RA is known to increase the risk of atherosclerosis, which can affect coronary diseasy, blood pressure, heart rate. Factor in the effects of pain and fear we often have from this stinking disease, not to mention corticosteroids, such as prednisone, and the mechanisms of the sympathetic nervous system are heightened.

I agree with Deb about the difficulty in proving causation.
MarleneJ
MarleneJ
I have lots of neuropathy from RA. My hands are just not the same! And of course, RA attacked my heart, so I have heart disease. Even with very low cholesterol.

I looked up the sympathetic nervous system (it's been a long time since I studied anatomy!) and I don't honestly know if it has affected me! Do you have specific symptoms, Kim? Sorry you are going through this. You've been really hit hard by a lot of weird things associated with RA.