Well, I had a severe fall on black ice (another reason to hate winter!) and several abdominal surgeries which may be a factor as well. I also have hypothyroidism. In this instance, I had been under a lot of stress, some of it good stress, but also a very big upset. My mother has ITP and hypothyroidism, so there is evidence of autoimmune disease in my family as well.

Wow! I'm glad that you survived such a horrific accident, but you are so right about that unwanted gift. How can trauma cause an autoimmune disease? Do our bodies still feel ill from the trauma? So many people have back and/or abdominal traumas, why do only a few of us develop an autoimmune disease from it?

Not sure if there is connection between trauma and autoimmune. The doctors I had that diagnosed me suggested that either might be reason I have it. But that there is no definite cause as yet for those who have the disease or it’s progressions. Not sure if that’s changed. MS runs in my Dads family with three that I know of (it has shown up a bit later in life for all of them so far) and my Mother also had Hypothyroidism and some undiagnosed issues. My brother has some mayor health concerns but no diagnoses. So the guessing continues and I watch the younger ones in the family closely. Keep smiling, keep moving= my moto! But I sure hate to use Predisone. Maybe I have had to for too long and to many times, not sure. Side effects not good although it does seem to make a difference. So R and R as much as possible for me. Anyone else find something besides these drugs that definitely help?

@pcfromfm ,You had inquired about automune in our family's. My mother was recently diagnosed with Polymyalgia rheumatica, My sister recently with Fibromyalgia and my brother had an emergency resection, cause unknown, just researching that. A grandson with Vitiligo and many more suspected.
@vdouglas
Von

@kimh FWIW, I am 47 and I was diagnosed earlier this year. I've experienced symptoms since I was 31 years old. Looking at me, you would think I'm athletic and healthy and not in pain and struggling. There are stories in this and other groups of people diagnosed in their teens. Age may be a factor, but it certainly isn't a determining factor. I think it is easy to accept (and, really, partially dismiss) disease when it is found in older people because that is "just part of aging" ... but it is difficult to confront a chronic pain condition in younger patients because it is so difficult to understand and accept (even for physicians). YMMV, but that is my perspective on it ...

I have to agree with you and to be honest, I have to wonder how many undiagnosed patients are out there. MP may not be as rare as we are led to believe. I have read that some people have it and never experience symptoms or that their symptoms resolve on their own. lol I'm only a little older than you, but what is YMMV?

@kimh It is possible it is under-diagnosed, but it is also possible to overfit symptoms to MP/SM. Dr. Pardi, at Mayo, told me about a study where they looked at CT scans taken from a random sampling of patients who were being seen for other conditions. About 25% of those patients had MP based on the CT scan. Because of improvements in CT scans, we are seeing the MP diagnosis more frequently, but most diagnosed patients have no symptoms, so it is unclear at this time (as far as I can tell) how prevalent this may be in the general population and what conditions lead to symptomatic mesenteritis. Right now, there is a lot of research to do and I'm grateful for institutions like Mayo Clinic that are pushing forward the boundaries of medical knowledge in this and other areas.

PS: YMMV = "your mileage may vary" ... abbreviations are a bad habit I have from being on the Internet for essentially forever. 🙂