Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Alternatives and ALCHEMISTS EBV autoimmunity hypothesis

Has anyone ever heard of this? Epstein Barr virus being connected to autoimmune diseases?

Dr. Alessio Fasano is a gastroenterologist who has coined the term of "three legged stool" for autoimmune diseases. He says three conditions contribute to getting an autoimmune disease. Genetics, leaky gut, and environmental triggers. Viruses are classified as triggers. Most of his work is on celiac disease but he does refer to arthritis too.

My doctor told me, that often an EBV-infection in the teenage age triggers AS.

EBV is the virus that commonly causes adolescent Infectious Mononucleosis (IM), or 'Mono' as it's referred to in America.

In the case of the spondlyarthropathies, infectious bacteria such as Salmonella, Shigella or Campylobacter act as environmental triggers of disease, but I don't think EBV is recognised as such.

DavidP, I appreciate your depth of knowledge.

Correct, EBV is not recognized as environmental trigger, much less the actual viral origin of symptoms we label "autoimmune". I have spoken with several MDs and microbiologists at MCV here in Richmond, VA, and no one will deny it but no one will touch the EBV autoimmune hypothesis with a 10 ft pole either. We are all JUST starting do put the pieces together.

Rayd, can I ask who is your physician?

Read Medical Medium, by Anthony William. I'd be interested to know what you all think.

I have zero medical training, my background is in sustainable agriculture, and I have been reading The AMA since getting diagnosed a year ago. I also read Townsend Letters, PLOS One, anything "alternative" I can find.

Chronic active EBV disease is connected with uveitis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3112034/

I don't take any medications, although the "RN Ambassador"/Drug co. Rep has come to my house twice now with buckets of literature and promo materials encouraging me to try Humira.

It never made sense to me that my body was randomly, with HLAB27+ genes, attacking itself. I always suspected it to be pathogenic in origin. And that is why I never took Humira. I dont want to take an immune suppressant if the RA is pathogenic in origin.

Josephine, your last point on RA being pathogenic....

I myself was on Remecade infleximab for the past year but it only worked for the first two weeks and my AS pain returned soon after with vengeance....despite it not working on me my doctors continued with the biologic for the whole year with me taking a dose every 2 months....

My doctors were not listening to me that my CRP levels were increasing.... long story short.... I forced them to stop and this year they were amazed to see that my CRP levels has fallen right down but not yet to normal levels ie. a person without disease...

Conclusion, Biologics don't work for everyone and can make your disease worse, On Infleximab I was in flare mode 24 hours a day...without it I now have good days and bad days Rather than all extremely horrible....It seems the biologic suppressed my immune system which only made my pain worse... now my pain levels fluctuate big time with means my immune system is working....But is it working correctly is another matter....

My disease was triggered by mono & I have met several others with the same experience. I suspect being B27+ may have been a factor. I have good medical records from when this all happened having not completely recovered from mono, morphed into every symptom of AS which I had never heard of.

I got sick in junior high; over 50 years ago.
Our water well on the farm began emitting stinky water.
we cleaned the well and had to do the same thing years later.

My brothers and sister all have had back surgeries, gut problems and spondy problems. Dad also had multiple surgeries o his back and mom had the Parkinson's problem.
It was years later they also found a hog protein in the water that stayed in the water for years.
could it have been that hog protein?

HI Josephiine,

sorry for the late response.

My physician is a simple medical doctor with a specializiation in micro-immunetherapy here in Vienna. She was recommended by a friend. She is nice and open to new approaches (like this micro-immunetherapy) but the medication she gave me didn't work at all. So I stopped the therapy by myself. This micro-immune approach tries to have an influence on your autoimmune-system by every little amounts of medication to push it in the right direction. So far it is a little bit similar to homeopathy. I was desperated and it seems to have definitely no side-effects but it turns out that it hadn't any effect at all. To be honest I think it is not working at all.

Hope you're fine!
Rayd