Learn Your Family Medical History This Holiday Season

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Christmas is the perfect holiday to learn more about your family history and listen to the stories of your abuelo and abuela; catch up with la typical tia who wants to know everything about your romantic life and los primos you haven’t seen the whole year.

Christmas can also be the perfect opportunity to learn about your family medical history and how likely you are to develop one of the 100-plus autoimmune diseases.

The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) has the following advice to help you get started:

1. Get educated.
There are more than 100 known autoimmune diseases and an additional 51 diseases that are suspected to be autoimmune-related. Autoimmunity is the underlying cause of these diseases. It is the process whereby the immune system mistakenly recognizes the body’s own proteins as foreign invaders and begins producing antibodies that attack healthy cells and tissues, causing a variety of diseases.

The diseases themselves can affect almost any part of the body, including the kidneys, skin, heart, liver, lymph nodes, thyroid and the central nervous system. Autoimmune diseases include multiple sclerosis (MS), myasthenia gravis, scleroderma, polymyositis, vasculitis, lupus, Sjögren’s disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), type 1 or juvenile diabetes, endometrosis, Crohn’s disease and Graves’ disease.

Of the 50 million Americans living and coping with ADs, more than 75 percent are women. ADs are one of the top 10 leading causes of death of women under the age of 65. They are responsible for more than $100 billion in direct health care costs annually.

HIV/AIDS is NOT an autoimmune disease.

2. Know that autoimmune diseases run in families.
There is a genetic component involved in these diseases and they tend to cluster in families. With autoimmune diseases, multiple genes are involved, not just one. As a result, several genes that increase risk get passed on with these diseases. In one family, for example, you may see a grandmother with alopecia areata, a mother with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, children with psoriasis and aunts and uncles with rheumatoid arthritis.

3. Next, prepare your own family medical history.
Given the family connection, this is critical. Sit down with family members and do a detailed family health history. Then share it with each other, check it against AARDA’s list (www.aarda.org) and tell your doctor.

4. Keep a “symptoms” list.
People with ADs often suffer from a number of symptoms that, on the surface, seem unrelated. It is important, therefore, to make a list of every major symptom you’ve experienced so that you can present it clearly to your doctor.

5. Be patient.
Getting a correct diagnosis (http://bit.ly/1O6eYKm) will take time – AARDA surveys show an average of three-and-a-half years and five doctors. But doing your homework and getting educated will help speed the process.