Mediterranean Disease

Treating Mediterranean Disease

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:48:35 +0000

There is no cure for Mediterranean Disease, a condition also referred to as Familial Mediterranean Fever. The range and duration of symptoms will vary from one individual to the next, however treating Mediterranean Disease is very easy. Though no cure exists for Mediterranean Disease, treating your condition will manage your symptoms and provide you effective relief.
The most common treatment for Mediterranean Disease is through the administration of a drug called Colchicine. This drug is taken in oral form, by pill, and will reduce the inflammation in your system that is causing your pain. For many, one pill a day may be enough, for others, several doses of Colchicine will be required to manage symptoms. In some cases, patients are able to predict when an attack of their symptoms of Mediterranean Disease will occur, and can take preventive measures by taking their medication when they feel an attack is imminent. This will stop your attack from occurring. Unfortunately, taking your medication after an attack occurs is not as effective, but it will provide you symptomatic relief.

So long as you are sticking to your schedule of Colchicine medication, the intensity and frequency of your symptoms will decrease. Staying on your regimen will also lower any risk of complications you may experience from Mediterranean Disease. Side effects of Colchicine will include some tingling and numbness in your feet or your hands, and in some cases muscle weakness. Muscle weakness is most likely to occur in patients that are older males that have poor kidney function, or are heavy drinkers.

It is also said that the symptoms and signs of Mediterranean Disease will diminish and decrease as you age, and for many, with pregnancy. It is not clear to date as to why these times will improve symptoms, but it is possibly due to changes that occur in your immune system as you age or when you are pregnant.

Dietary changes may also improve your symptoms. Some patients with Mediterranean Disease report that by sticking to a low-fat diet they experience reduced symptoms and less frequent attacks. Another side effect of Colchicine is lactose intolerance, so you may want to consume a lactose free diet when you are undergoing Colchicine treatment.

There is no cure to Mediterranean Disease, but management of your signs and symptoms is possible. Stick to your medication schedule and do not put yourself under rigorous activity or stress if possible. Treating Mediterranean Disease and its symptoms is easy if you stay on your prescribed course of action.

Symptoms of Mediterranean Disease

admin — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:23:23 +0000

The signs and symptoms of Mediterranean Disease are complex and can vary from one individual to the next. Most signs of Mediterranean Disease will begin in the early childhood years, and diagnosis will often occur before the patient reaches the age of 20. Most often, the symptoms and signs of Mediterranean Disease are referred to as ‘attacks’ and will occur without warning. Often, these attacks will last anywhere from a few hours to several days, and symptoms will peak within the first 12 hours of the attack.

The most common signs and symptoms of Mediterranean Disease include: a sudden fever that will range anywhere from 100 to 104 F, pain in the abdomen, pain in the chest, joints that are swollen and achy, constipation that is followed with diarrhoea, and sometimes a rash that appears on the knees. Other less common symptoms include muscle pains and aches, pelvic inflammatory disease in women, pain in the scrotum area for men, and sometimes inflammation of the blood vessels.

Attacks for Mediterranean Disease are sporadic in nature, though many patients report that stress or rigorous activity may provoke these symptoms or attacks. Patients can go weeks or even months without any symptoms or attacks, and the interim period between attacks the patient will report feeling healthy.

You should know that it is important to see a doctor as soon as you begin to experience any combination of these symptoms. The most typical symptoms of Mediterranean Disease are a sudden fever that is associated with abdominal pain or pain in the joints and chest. If these symptoms are associated with serious pain, or diarrhoea, vomiting, or nausea, you will want to see your doctor immediately for treatment. Treatment of Mediterranean Disease is often controlled with medication, and if your medication is not working, speak to your doctor about alternate options.
There is no cure for Mediterranean Disease, but treatment will manage and control your symptoms.

Diagnosing Mediterranean Disease

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:11:55 +0000

Mediterranean Disease is also referred to as Familial Mediterranean Fever, or FMV, and is a rare disorder affecting those of Mediterranean descent. Common groups affect are Arabs, Turks, Armenians, and many others. However Mediterranean Disease is a genetic disorder and as such, this disease is not exclusive to Mediterranean descent.

Diagnosing Mediterranean Disease can prove difficult, and to date there is no specific test that can detect Familial Mediterranean Fever. Your doctor will use your reported symptoms to rule out other disorders and diseases and will make a diagnosis based on a series of symptoms or combination of several factors. Genetic testing may also be performed if you wish to have children to determine if you will pass on this disease to your offspring.
To diagnose Mediterranean Disease, your doctor will first look for the common symptoms and signs associated with the disease. These include an abrupt and unexplained fever that can reach as high as 104 F. You may also be experiencing pain in your joints, chest, or abdomen, and for some men, their scrotum. Often these symptoms will improve on their own, but recur at a later time. If you have this combination of symptoms, your doctor may suspect Mediterranean Disease.

Family history will be an important part of the diagnostic process as well. If you have a family history of Mediterranean Disease, you will have a greater likelihood of receiving this diagnosis yourself due to the genetic nature of this disease.

Ethnicity will play a factor but not be a deciding factor in your diagnosis. This disease affects those with Mediterranean origin including Arabs, North Africans, Turks, Armenians, Sephardic Jews, and sometimes Italians and Greeks. However due to the fact that this condition has been found in other groups within the United States, ethnicity will not play a significant role in diagnosis.

A final step in diagnosis of Mediterranean Disease will be blood tests. It will be important to have blood work done during an attack, and your doctor will be looking for elevated markers that will indicate inflammation in your body.

Though it seems complex, the diagnosis of Mediterranean Disease is not complex, and can be accomplished in a simple doctor/patient interview with follow up blood work. Once diagnosis is confirmed, treatment can begin and you will experience relief of your symptoms rather quickly.

Causes and Risk Factors of Mediterranean Disease

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:38:27 +0000

Mediterranean Disease is a rare inflammatory disease that affects those of Mediterranean descent. The only known cause to date of Mediterranean Disease is a genetic cause and thus this disease is inherited and spread genetically. To date there is no alternate known cause of Mediterranean Disease.

The cause of Mediterranean Disease is a defect of a genetic nature on the 16th chromosome. The gene that is affected is known as the MEFV and it provides the essential genetic information for a protein that our bodies use called pyrin. Pyrin is a protein that is responsible for regulating inflammatory processes in our body, and thus when this genetic coding is affected, inflammatory responses will occur in the body. With Mediterranean Disease, inflammatory responses are the leading cause of symptoms and pain and thus the pyrin protein and its mutations are the direct cause of this pain.
It is not known directly how a defect on the pyrin gene can cause Mediterranean Disease, as this disease affects every patient differently. There are to date more than 50 known mutations of the pyrin gene, and thus it is postulated that patients with Mediterranean Disease simply do not make pyrin sufficiently. This may result in inflammatory responses that occur that can not be regulated with pyrin, and as such, severe symptoms that result in Mediterranean Disease. For a patient to be affected with Mediterranean Disease, they must receive this genetic mutation from both of their parents.

Risk factors do exist for Mediterranean Disease, but are not exclusive to every patient. Men seem to be more susceptible to this mutation than women, and those of Mediterranean Descent or that have a blood relative with Mediterranean Disease are in the highest risk categories. Most patients are younger than the age of 20, and the most common ethnic group associated with this disease is the Ashkenazi Jewish group where the frequency is suspected at 1 in 135 individuals affected.

Mediterranean Disease is only caused genetically, and can not be spread from one person to another. The causes to date are definitive, and though there is no cure, treatment of Mediterranean Disease is very effective at relieving symptoms.