How does the immune system function? How does it protect you?
Your Immune system is a system that is devised to protect you from any harmful agents like bacteria, virus, toxic proteins or any thing that injure a tissue or cell. If a foreign body like a thorn or a piece of wood gets stuck up in the skin of your finger, we know that within a a week that part of the finger will get inflamed, suppurated, pus will form and the tissues around it will degenerate and the thorn is thrown out along with the neighbouring dead tissue. This is your immunity at work. For this to happen the immune system has to first identify what is a foreign body. Once it is identified a message is sent to the bone marrow to send special white blood cells in large numbers to cordon off the part surrounding the thorn and destroy it The destruction leads to debris called pus which is partly absorbed by cells called phagocytes and rest is thrown out along with the foreign body. The injured part then heals by producing normal tissue. This is a normal process and all such injuries are healed automatically and small injuries do not require antibiotics or doctor’s help. For all this mechanism to occur there are certain requirements. The primary requirement is of cells that can identify a foreign body. These are called surveillance cells. The surveillance cells of our immune system have an inherent ability to recognize what is a part of self and what is foreign.

Auto-immune = fighting against self; (Auto = self and immune = fight)
In auto-immune diseases the power to recognize the body tissue as self is distorted. The surveillance cells make a mistake of recognizing one of our own tissue or organ as foreign. The immune-system starts firing-off the organ or tissue identified as foreign and tries to destroy it. In different diseases different tissues are earmarked for destruction by our own immune system. In short, our own defense mechanism starts working against our own body which it is supposed to defend. It is sort of a mutiny by police force.

In Rheumatoid Arthritis, the destructive process is concentrated primarily on Joints (the cartilages and the synovial membrane of joints). The joint and surrounding tissues get red and inflamed. This primary inflammation gives rise to severe pain. The Immune system then tries to throw away the joint as if it were a thorn. The joints being a part of the body refuse to be thrown off. Thus there arises a tug-of-war, which finally brings about distortion in the joints. Fibrous tissues then replace the destroyed tissues. This makes the joints stiff and unmovable. As the disease progresses the destruction may spread to other tissue like kidneys etc.

Modus operandi: Immune operation starts with identification of injured or infected tissue; The fight for survival begins in the tissue, first with inflammation of affected or injured tissue, followed by destruction, followed by replacement with fibrous tissue.

Why oh why should I get rheumatoid arthritis?
More information about rheumatoid arthritis: to understand rheumatoid arthritis i.e. inflammation of joints, it is important for us to understand why inflammation occurs any where in the body. As a rule injury to any living cell or tissue provokes a defense reaction from that tissue. The injury could be due to infection by bacteria, virus, chemical, toxic protein, radiation or physical trauma. Most important tissue injury could occur due to neurotransmitters like adrenaline or serotinin, secreted during anger, fright or grief etc. The first or primary process that occurs to defend itself is in the form of acute inflammation. This process of inflammation produces redness, severe pain, and sensitivity so that the patient does not move the part and cause more damage to it. The part if given rest automatically heals by the natural immunity and the inflammation and pains disappear. If this is not sufficient to take care of the injurious agent, the DNA within the cells initiates another process to defend. This secondary process gives rise to Thickening, indurations, swellings or accumulations in the injured tissue.

This process occurs because the primary process of inflammation did not serve it’s function of helping to heal. The delicate part whose inflammation did not subside and became chronic needs now to be given a compulsory rest. Thus the surrounding tissue help is taken by the body to wrap it up as if to say, or bandage the delicate injured part, by producing stiffness in neighbouring muscles, or producing oedematous swelling. The body has now packed it up as if in a parcel This is also called guarding.

Doctors have always underestimated intelligence of this God-gifted computerized body. The doctors, who think they are demi-gods, conveniently forget that every thing that occurs inside this body has a concrete reason or a cause. The primary process of inflammation that produces pains and sensitiveness of a part, is a warning to the patient so that he does not move the part and this would prevent further damage to it. It voluntarily gives rest to it so that it heals. Pain, which is really your friend is considered as a foe. With all the might the pain is suppressed with the help of painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs and the patient starts using the part normally. He is happy with the doctor. Little does he know that the doctor is not helping him to heal but on the contrary helping to damage the part further. So destruction is another or a third process that occurs a tissue that is under attack. This tissue destruction gives rise to distortion and deformities.

It is important to understand during the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis that painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs give miraculous relief from pain initially only to become less and less effective as the joint tissues go on getting further damaged until they become useless.