Understanding Autoimmune Diseases- A Review

Abstract

Autoimmune disorder is an umbrella term for a variety of painful conditions involving a malfunction in the body's complex immune system. In a normal immune response to an infection or invasion, the immune system causes a temporary inflammation while it kills off the invader cells. In autoimmune disorders, this inflammation becomes chronic, causing pain and permanent changes or damages the involved tissues. There is no specific cause for autoimmune disorders; they show patterns of remission and recurrence and they are difficult to diagnose because the specific disorders have different possible symptoms and individual symptoms varies. This article introduces a number of autoimmune diseases and inflammatory myopathies. It includes a definition of autoimmune diseases as well as a short explanation of immunity.