Hereditary or not hereditary ?

Ellen   -  yes please I'd like name of person doing the hereditary study.   Their email as I live in Australia and can participate by email.   We don't have as many people in our country only 22 million so many less sufferers of RA and no money for reaearch like USA.

Some people tell me that its not hereditary for them but got it after glandular fever or I've met 5 people now who say they reckon it was printing ink as they worked in the printing industry.

keep in touch

I don't think it can be done by email because blood tests are involved, but I think they have a couple of research centers participating, and they may be able to work something out - they did for me off-site, had samples taken where I live and sent FedEx shipping materials and instructions.

I would suggest first finding out if any of your first-degree relatives are interested in participating with you, and then emailing her to ask about participation.  She would then give you the details of what is involved for both you and your family members.  If you want to ask me more about it, please email me privately since this is not the purpose of this support site.  (Thanks for understanding - my email is egalo@stlawu.edu)

I share that concern for my daughter as well -

Hope - gosh your doctor knows what gene causes rheumatoid  ?

I wonder how he knows did you have a genetic test ?  If so what was test called ?

Can you ask your doctor exactly what that gene is and let me know  ?

There may be more than one, and it doesn't necessarily CAUSE it but makes you more susceptible, as far as I know.  The gene I read about  that's involved in RA is HLA-DR2  There may be more than one variety involved... Here is some info on Wikipedia about what those numbers & letters mean.  I work in college chem & physics departments and believe me, this stuff gets incredibly detailed.  Knowing the abbreviated name unfortunately does not do us a whole lot of good (maybe a sense of POWER THROUGH KNOWLEDGE), except for the encouragement that SOMETHING is indeed understood about the cause - it's not "us" and not all in our heads!  Here's the info about HLA-B27 - it is involved in ankylosing spondylitis, according to Wikipedia again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLA-B27

Ellen I'll google and wikipedia HLA-B27 + HLA-DR2.

Yes I think there is more than one gene involved.  Maybe not everyone has all the genes that cause it.  Or some other combination.  I believe that is why some drugs work for some people, - for a while, or not at all, or why some people die or get servious reactions to the drugs.

I think thus far the current drugs or combinations are suppressing all or most of the immune system which to me is dangerous as we need our immune systems to fight off disease. I personally believe that its dangerous to suppress the immune system for too long - like years.   A lot of the drugs were for cancer to be used for 1 -2 years then ceased not to be ongoing.

Appears that mostly the adverse events occur after long time use and the higher doses.  It certainly was in my case.

Be interesting to see if those who have Hereditary Rheumatoid or fibromyalgia, lupus or other immune suppressed diseases are different in their genetic make up to those who did not inherit it but was caused by something like Gladular fever or several have told me exposure to one or another kind of chemical or printing ink.

Drugs need to turn off this genetic process altogether - not just suppress all or part of someone's immune system I believe.

There was something on this site about 2 weeks ago on the front page before it changed - that somewhere in the world - the UK I think had found that there certainly was more than one gene - they found another.

Is your RA worse in Winter  ?

Yes, I talk about that a bit on this sharepost...

Thanks Hope - I'll google it and wikapedia it as Ellen suggests.  Just take each day as it comes.  I try and live each day as if its my last.  Even just seeing the sun again this week has helped my RA.   We are just into Spring here in Australia and my RA hates the winter.