Overview of Autoimmune Disorders of Connective Tissue

Your immune system helps protect you from illness and infection. It usually attacks invading bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. With an autoimmune disorder, your immune system makes a mistake and starts attacking parts of your own body.

Autoimmune Disorders

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Connective tissue is what holds your organs together. There's some connective tissue in every organ but especially in your skin, joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels.

An autoimmune disorder of connective tissue is a disease in which your immune system attacks your own connective tissue.

• There are many different types of autoimmune diseases of connective tissue, including lupus, Sjögren syndrome, systemic sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis

• These conditions often affect more than just connective tissues

Symptoms depend on which disorder you have but can include:

• Joint pain and swelling

• Dry eyes

• Skin rash, swelling, or lumps

• Muscle aches

• Fingers that get pale, tingly, and numb when you get cold (Raynaud syndrome)

Doctors suspect you have an autoimmune disorder of connective tissue based on your symptoms and by doing:

• Blood tests

• Sometimes a biopsy (taking out a small piece of tissue to look at under a microscope)

Doctors treat these disorders with:

• Corticosteroids and other medicine that slow down your immune system and keep it from attacking your own tissue

If you take corticosteroids at high doses or for a long period of time, you have a higher chance of having osteoporosis