Banishing Behcet’s Disease
You don’t remember things that you should remember like the song that played for you and your husband’s first dance. You have mouth ulcers and arthritis. You could have Behcet’s disease.
Behcet’s disease is a chronic, life-long disorder that causes the inflammation of small blood vessels throughout the body. Doctors don’t know what causes or cures it.
The highest prevalence of Behcet’s disease has been reported in northern Turkey, where the disorder affects up to 420 in 100,000 people. The disorder is rare in northern European countries, and the United States, where it generally affects fewer than 1 in 100,000 people. Anyone at any age can develop this disorder, though symptoms usually appear between the ages of 20 and 30. Men are more at risk for the illness than women.
Because Behcet’s is a multisystem disease, it can involve all the organs of the body and affect the central nervous system, causing impaired speech, balance, movement and memory loss. The results of the disease include blindness, strokes, meningitis, swelling of the spinal cord and intestinal compilations.
The disease can lead to numerous signs and symptoms that may seem unrelated at first. They may include:
§ Mouth sores which occur at some time in all patients. They are recurrent and painful and affect almost all patients with Behcet’s disease. The sores look like canker sores but are numerous and painful. They are usually the first symptom that people with the illness notice. The sores are on lips, tongue and inside of the cheek.
§ Eye inflammation can cause pain, blurry vision, light sensitivity, tears or eye redness. Behcet’s disease may lead to vision loss. Severe eye disease that can cause blindness is more common in the Middle East and Japan than the United States.
§ Skin rashes and lesions are common symptoms. They may look like acne or coin-shaped nodules or ulcers that may be shallow or deep and painful. A red bump or sore may develop if the skin is scratched or pricked. This is referred to as a positive pathergy test.
§ Genital sores look similar to mouth sores and are painful. They aren’t as common as mouth sores. They can appear on the scrotum (the sack enclosing the testes) in men and on the vulva (the external genital organs) in women.
Behcet’s disease is not infectious, contagious or sexually transmitted. Researchers believe that patients may have a genetic predisposition that is triggered by an infection or environmental factors.
Factors that may increase your risk for the disease include age, if you are male or live in countries in the Middle East or Far East, including Turkey, Iran, Japan and China. There are some similarities between Behcet’s disease and lupus and Crohn’s disease.
When people are diagnosed, doctors usually look for three major symptoms, including arthritis and ulcers, that occur more than once.
There are different treatments that are used to manage symptoms. For lesions confined to the mouth, genitals and skin, topical steroids and some oral drugs may be effective. Corticosteroids may be beneficial. Some people are placed on low-dose prednisone. When eye or central-nervous-system involvement occurs, high doses of prednisone and another form of immunosuppressive treatment are necessary.
Most people with Behcet’s disease can lead productive lives and control symptoms with proper medicine, rest and exercise. Some patients enter a remission period where they don’t have any symptoms of the disease.
