Do you know that humans have blood vessels that are super long in length? It is estimated that at least 100 000 kilometres in length of the blood vessels in the human body. Imagine when there is something wrong with the blood vessels. It certainly can lead to symptoms which often need medicine to treat it. There are many conditions that can affect the blood vessels, one of them is vasculitis.
Before we go further on vasculitis, we will know a bit more on the blood vessels as it is the body part associated with vasculitis. Blood vessels act as channels in which the blood goes through to be distributed to the body tissues. Blood vessels are divided into three types which are arteries, veins and capillaries. Arteries often carry blood that is oxygenated from the heart to all parts of the body (exception to pulmonary artery). Veins carry deoxygenated blood from the body into the heart to be re-oxygenated (exception to pulmonary vein). Capillaries are the smallest and abundant kind of blood vessels that connect the arteries and veins. Capillaries enable exchange of materials between blood and tissues in the body.
Vasculitis is a rare condition where there is inflammation to the blood vessels. It is known as an autoimmune disorder. An autoimmune disease is a condition where the immune system reacts abnormally by attacking healthy cells, in the case of vasculitis, the immune system attacks and damages the blood vessels. Vasculitis is estimated to affect up to 40 people per million population. This shows how rare vasculitis can occur.
Although vasculitis is said to be autoimmune, the exact cause for the condition remains unknown. Vasculitis can be divided into two types which are primary vasculitis and secondary vasculitis. Primary vasculitis is vasculitis with unknown cause. Secondary vasculitis is vasculitis triggered by health conditions such as infection, cancer, medication or other inflammatory disease. Vasculitis can affect any type of blood vessel in any part of the body. Vasculitis causes restriction or blockage to the blood flow. It may also cause blood clots to be formed. In rare cases, the inflamed blood vessels cause ballooning of its wall and form aneurysm (weaken and bulged blood vessels). Aneurysm can pose great danger as it is at high risk of tearing and eventually bleeding excessively.
General symptoms include fever, tiredness, pain, skin rash and unexplained weight loss. Other symptoms may occur in concordance to the affected part of the vasculitis. To better understand this, here is an example of vasculitis commonly occurring. Behcet’s disease is one of the types for vasculitis. Behcet’s disease is a multisystem condition of vasculitis as it affects many parts of the body such as mouth, eyes, skin and genitals. Almost all patients have oral ulcers that keep on coming back and are painful ones. Ulcers can not only be found in the mouth as it can be found on the private area such as penis and scrotum in male, and vulva and vagina in females. Behcet’s disease also affects the eyes with symptoms of blurry vision, eye redness and pain sensation.
Another common type of vasculitis is Buerger’s disease. This condition is also referred to as thromboangiitis obliterans. This condition often affects small to medium-sized blood vessels in the arms and/or legs. Symptoms include numbness, tingling, burning or pain to the affected area. Patients may also feel coldness of the area where vasculitis occurs. Buerger disease is commonly found in males with a history of smoking. There are actually many more types of vasculitis such as giant cell arteritis that mostly affects the aorta, polyarteritis nodosa that affect medium-sized blood vessels commonly in middle aged people, Takayasu’s arteritis that affects aorta with its branches and many more. This means that vasculitis itself is a term used to describe the many types of vasculitis as it can affect all kinds of blood vessels and produce many symptoms.
The question now is, can you be cured from vasculitis? Unfortunately, there is no cure available to cure vasculitis at this time. This is why it is important for early diagnosis and prompt treatment. Treatment available can help to reduce the inflammation caused by vasculitis and in hope provide relief for patients. Mild vasculitis will find relief with over-the-counter pain relief medicines. Severe vasculitis often needs prescribed medicine to cope with symptoms. At the end of the day, treatment for vasculitis will be based on severity of the disease and organ involvement. Removing or tackling the issue that causes secondary vasculitis often provides the biggest help. Due to the fact that there is a high tendency for vasculitis to emerge again after initial treatment, patients are advised to follow all treatment plans provided to ensure symptoms can be controlled and lower the chance for vasculitis to occur more than once. It is worth noting that most types of vasculitis are considered as a lifelong condition which means patients may not be able to be completely free from the disease but able to control the disease from progressing worst.