An autoimmune disorder is a condition that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue. In other words, the immune system mistakes some part of the body as a pathogen and attacks its own cells. This may be restricted to certain organs (e.g. in autoimmune thyroiditis) or involve a particular tissue in different places (e.g. Goodpasture's disease which may affect the basement membrane in both the lung and the kidney).

There are more than 80 different types of autoimmune disorders and some have similar symptoms. This makes it hard for your health care provider to know if you really have one of these diseases, and if so, which one.

Getting diagnosed can be frustrating and stressful. In many people, the first symptoms are being tired, muscle aches and low fever.The diseases may also have flare-ups, when they get worse, and remissions, when they all but disappear.The diseases do not usually go away, but symptoms can be treated.

In general, though, the diagnosis of an autoimmune disorder requires a combination of blood tests, a thorough review of your history and symptoms, and a physical examination. Our ELISA tests support the health care provider to get to proper a diagnosis of the patient.

What causes the immune system to no longer tell the difference between healthy body tissues and antigens is unknown. One theory is that some microorganisms (such as bacteria or viruses) or drugs may trigger some of these changes, especially in people who have genes that make them more likely to get autoimmune disorders.

The treatment of autoimmune diseases is typically with immunosuppression-medication which decreases the immune response.