A really quick and simple primer of autoimmune disease, vasculitis and vasculitic diseases

This week is Vasculitis Week. The purpose is to raise awareness of this disease both in the patient and the medical community.
I'll offer you this quick and extremely superficial summary about the illness and provide some links to get further information.

"What is Vasculitis?
Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessels, arteries, veins or capillaries. When such inflammation occurs, it causes changes in the walls of blood vessels, such as weakening and narrowing that can progress to the point of blood vessel blockage."
From the Vasculitis Foundation Web Site.

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Think of it this way. Imagine a pyramid. At the very base is autoimmune diseases. As you know there are many types of autoimmune illnesses.

The next level is vasculitis. There are more than 15 types of vasculitis diseases.

The tip of the pyramid would be Polyarteritis Nodosa, Churg-Strauss, Wegeners, etc. These are the individual vasculitic diseases. These individual vasculitis diseases are mainly classified by the type of arteries they affect.

I can give you a bunch of web sites to visit, but instead I'll just direct you to the Vasculitis Foundation where you can get the best education about these diseases.

www.vasculitisfoundation.org

So that is part of our mission in doing this bike ride. We want to raise awareness and let Congress know that supporting vasculitis research is key. The other part is to promote more research and more funding of stimulus money into ALL rare diseases.

In coming posts I'll share with you links to learn about some of these other rare diseases.

Remember this---"It's only a rare disease until you or a loved is diagnosed with it." Then it doesn't matter if only one other person has it.