Viral, Bacterial, Fungal and Parasitic  - Arthritis

"Diseases in which the immune system produces autoantibodies to an endogenous antigen, with consequent injury to tissues"'

Meaning that your immune system starts to reject it's own tissue, it's own "self", as if it was an intruder.
Precise details are not completely understood.
Four possible mechanisms are recognised

• Some intracellular substances may not be recognised as "self", once released into the circulation induces an immune response.
• Due to chemical, physical or biological alterations of the body's substances, an immune response occurs.
• Foreign antigens cross-reacting with normal "self" substances, produce the immune response, i.e some vaccinations.
• Mutational changes of "self"

Genetic factors play a role in autoimmune disorders. Relatives of patients with autoimmune disorders often show a high incidence of the same type of antibodies. Women are more affected than men. Enviromental factors could provoke a disease in predisposed people.

Here is a partial list of systematic autoimmunity and organ-specific autoimmunity:-

Organ specific diseases

• Graves disease
• Hashimoto's thyroidosis
• Thyrotoxicosis
• Idiopathic hypothyroidism
• Spontaneous male infertillity
• Pemphigus vulgaris
• Sympathetic opthalmia
• Phaciogenic Uveitis
• Bullous pemphigoid
• Autoimmune gastritis
• Insulin-resistant diabetes
• Allergic rhinitis
• Asthma
• Chronic active hepatitis
• Functional Autonomic abnormalities
• Juvenile insulin diabetes
• Ernicious anaemia
• Addison's disease
• Premature menopause
• Endometriosis
• Autoimmune haemolytic anaemia
• Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia
• Idiopathic neurotropenia
• Primary biliary cirrhosis
• Vitiligo
• Crytogenic cirrhosis
• Meniere's disease
• Ulcerative colitis

Systematic diseases

• Goodpasture's syndrome
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Systematic Lupus Erythematosus
• Batten's disease
• Jansky-Bielschowsky disease
• Polymitosis
• Scleroderma
• Alzheimer's disease
• Schizophrenia
• Spietemeyer-Sjorgen disease