Someone I know has recently tested positive for HLA-B27. What sorts of things is she going to be prone to? Is there any hygeine can she take up to lower her risk factors?
There is a strong association between having HLA-B27 and having one or more of the following diseases. However, many people with HLA-B27 are quite healthy. It’s a hefty topic!
ACUTE ANTERIOR UVEITIS
ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS
REACTIVE ARTHRITIS AND REITER SYNDROME
INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE
PSORIATIC ARTHRITIS
http://www.emedicine.com/oph/topic721.htm
Hey, wow. Coincidentally, we’re just about to bring this test online at the lab where I work. But I haven’t learned anything about it yet.
/I got nuthin’
I don’t know whether she (or I) have a positive HLA-B27 gene, but I have been reading a bit about this, since my sister has ankylosing spondylitis and an additional form of arthritis, which I’m trying to understand. Her initial diagnosis was juvenile spondyloarthropathy, back when she was 14. Now that she’s 20, I don’t suppose it’s “juvenile” any more, and I don’t know if the AS diagnosis is on top of or in addition to her original spondyloarthropathy.
In the event that she develops a condition similar to that of my sister’s (which AFAIK is considered quite severe) she can look forward to a lifetime of pain meds and physiotherapy. Ankylosing spondylitis is one of those diseases that get worse with immobility and better with movement, so my sister has to do a lot of exercises to maintain flexibility. She walks very stiffly (a bad habit from the early years of her illness) and with a bit of a hunched back, and she has trouble moving from a lying down to a sitting to a standing position. The disease began in her hips and legs, such that she had a LOT of pain, and it was initially thought that she had bursitis or tendonitis. It didn’t improve with treatment, and a few other diagnoses later, someone finally considered arthritis.
Not all carriers of HLA-B27 develop these illnesses, though, and after watching my sister over the past 6 years, I hope for your friend that she never will. Tell her to keep fit, and especially keep flexible, which, while it won’t prevent AS it will at least place her in the best possible physical condition to deal with it!
I am not a doctor, and I know this post is sort of random - I just know that at least one of those diseases isn’t pleasant. Since she tested positive for this, maybe she should sit down with her doctor and get a more realistic assessment.
Is this something gene therapy will be able to take care of in the near future?