Periodic disease is one of the strangest and most difficult to diagnose problems in human health. As a rule, the patient manages to undergo treatment by doctors of almost all specializations, which does not give any positive results, until he eventually finds out about the diagnosis, which causes unbearable suffering.
Pathology Description
Periodic disease is familiar to humanity under various names, such as recurrent polyserositis, Mediterranean fever, or Armenian disease. This disease is related to hereditary autosomal recessive dysfunctions and is widespread mainly among residents of the Mediterranean region of the planet. Therefore, often the disease can be found among the Greeks, Armenians, Sephardic Jews, Turks and among the many peoples of the Caucasus.
The clinical picture of periodic Armenian disease
The following varieties of periodic illness are distinguished, which depend on their localization:
- Thoracic.
- Febrile.
- Abdominal.
- Joint.
Thoracic type
The thoracic type is accompanied by a process of inflammation of the pleura, which, as it were, migrates to various parts of the chest. The results of studies and complaints of the patient, as a rule, indicate dry pleurisy, which, of course, cannot be true. Exacerbations may disappear after a week spontaneously.
Abdominal variant
Against the background of the abdominal variant of the Armenian periodic disease, doctors may suspect appendicitis, as the patient suffers from severe, even acute pains in the abdomen. Visibility is formed, as if it was a small bowel obstruction or cholecystitis. Often, such symptoms disappear mysteriously after two to four days. Periodic disease is usually diagnosed by resorting to an X-ray examination of the affected organs of the abdominal region.
Fever and articular types
Due to the febrile type of the disease , the patient's temperature rises sharply, and the course of the disease itself more closely resembles malaria fever.
But the joint variant is considered the most unpleasant, which manifests itself in the form of recurrent synovitis, and in addition, monoarthritis and arthralgia. In the case when arthritis is delayed, there is a likelihood of transient osteoporosis.
Causes and features of occurrence
The main reason for the Armenian disease lies in the heredity of a metabolic disorder, which may be accompanied by an increase in vascular permeability, the development of connective tissues, as well as a tendency to exudation or, in a more understandable language, to swelling. For a long time, the disease can proceed unsystematically, without causing any exacerbations. But due to the influence of a complex of internal and external premises that has not yet been studied, a benign tumor forms in relation to the serous membranes with Mediterranean fever (Armenian disease).
The onset of fever is accompanied by pain. Amyloid protein is deposited in tissues and organs, mainly in the kidneys. The attack can last for several days, after which the patient's condition improves markedly until the next attack occurs. Typically, remission is approximately three to seven days.
The deposition of amyloid substance after each case of attack causes an increasing inhibition of the kidneys. Chronic renal failure subsequently occurs in twenty-five to forty percent of patients.
Manifestations and signs of periodic illness
Diagnosis of the Armenian disease, as a rule, causes great difficulties. Nevertheless, the main characteristic features of this ailment can be outlined nevertheless:
- Fever usually accompanies the main stages of exacerbations. It is identical in its typology of malaria and is determined by a sudden temperature jump to a forty-degree mark.
- Peritonitis occurs in ninety-five percent of cases. Against the background of inflammation of the peritoneum, patients are hospitalized and sent to the surgical department.
- Arthritis acts as a joint type of disease, which can be traced in eighty percent of cases.
- Various breathing problems, bronchitis and pleurisy are attributed to the thoracic form, which occurs in sixty percent of situations.
- Combined forms, characterized by a significant increase in the spleen, damage to the lymph nodes, as well as a skin rash that is vaguely reminiscent of an erysipelas, are found among fifty percent. Rarely, but it happens that aseptic meningitis occurs.
Diagnosis of a periodic disease
The symptoms of the Armenian disease (which we explained) are rather unpleasant.
When diagnosing this disease, you should pay attention to the following criteria:
- Periods of short attacks that are not associated with a provoking factor and are stereotypical.
- It is noteworthy that the disease affects representatives of specific ethnic groups. Moreover, in children and adolescents, it occurs quite early.
- Similar diseases occur in close relatives.
- Amyloidosis of the kidneys occurs, against the background of which the specificity of laboratory parameters is extremely difficult to determine.
Armenian genetic disease is absolutely incompatible with pregnancy. Be that as it may, the frequency of seizures in expectant mothers is markedly reduced.
Treatment
The main therapeutic tool in the fight against this disease is "Colchicine." The dosage of this medication is one to two milligrams per day. It has a stabilizing effect on the membrane of neutrophils. In most situations, the drug in the bud prevents the formation of attacks of a periodic disease, while reducing their severity and frequency, and it also prevents renal amyloidosis. Symptoms and treatment of the Armenian disease are interconnected.
Initially, treatment of this disease was predominantly symptomatic. Methods to prevent the occurrence of seizures appeared in doctors in 1972, when the drug "Colchicine" was developed. In practice, it turns out that the therapy is stretched for the rest of the life of patients. The mechanism of action of the drug remains not fully understood. It works by inhibiting prostaglandins, and has anti-inflammatory properties, significantly reducing vascular permeability.
As for the forecasts, the disease can lead to temporary disability. With a stable strengthening of amyloidosis, the onset of renal failure is likely, which is likely to inevitably lead to disability. A positive effect, as a rule, occurs when treatment is started in a timely manner. For this reason, dispensary observation is welcome , so doctors strongly recommend it to suffering patients.
There is a cure for the Armenian disease. About it further.
Human Genes and Colchicine
An attack of a periodic illness often begins suddenly and also disappears suddenly. Sometimes it happens that the disease goes away for a long time, and sometimes even forever. But most often in the absence of serious therapeutic measures, this ailment is capable of acquiring irreversible consequences. Against the background of various clinical manifestations, the disease has many names, which were mentioned at the beginning of the article. For a long time, doctors believed that it was inherent exclusively genetic in nature. Most often, she was diagnosed among Armenian representatives, Jews, Greeks and Arabs, which, among other things, gave her another unofficial name - “old blood disease”. According to the patients, the specialists still consider the main cause of the manifestation of the Armenian disease to be a certain genetic mutation that can form in old nations.
To some extent, such complex explanations were convenient, since they allowed science to find a worthy justification for its shameful impotence. The pain that even the most powerful drugs are not able to relieve, as well as a depressed state of health, accompanied by numbness of the muscles, were explained by genetics, and nothing could be done. But over time, "Colchicine" was developed - an excellent drug that can bring significant relief during fever. But still it turned out that this remedy is helpless in the face of one of the worst consequences of the disease - amyloidosis, which is an irreversible change in body tissues, most often occurring in the kidneys.
Disease Risk Factors
The cause of this disease quite often becomes psychological trauma. In most of its cases, the ailment can aggravate in situations when a person finds himself in a life situation, accompanied by a depressed and depressed state for a long time, as well as a feeling of insecurity. A great influence on the development of the disease has experienced fears. Seizures that occur at an early age can often be triggered by an interruption in the child’s relationship with the mother. This explains why the vast majority of patients have all the signs of depression, especially a masked character, when they are expressed not in mental manifestations, but in pain in various parts of the body, for example, in the head, muscles, joints, or abdominal cavity.
In the twentieth century, the Armenian people had a huge number of factors that contributed to the spread of this disease and an increase in the number of patients concerned. Among them: resettlement, genocide, the destruction of former foundations, rallies and an earthquake, as well as the massacre in Sumgait, war and blockade.
Today, around the world, medicine is considering a psychosomatic disorder of a technogenic nature, which, as a rule, occurs in people who have suffered various disasters and horrors. Description of these factors and expresses the essence of the initial formation of periodic Armenian disease. That is, if we talk about the role that heredity plays in the development of this dangerous ailment, it should be remembered that this disease carries a deep genetic fear of a number of the peoples mentioned.