Neurological Diseases

Neurological diseases are disorders that attack the nervous system, causing various symptoms. Depending on the type of disease and its cause, every neurological condition exerts some form of influence on the nervous system. This manifests as functional impairment, such as loss of strength, speech disturbances, impaired coordination, and more.

Autoimmune Neurological Diseases

The human body is built to prevent the penetration of pathogens or to destroy them if they have already entered, using two systems: the innate immune system, which has a non-specific response, and the acquired immune system, which provides specific protection against pathogens.

The immune system operates based on the distinction between 'self' and 'non-self', and is not supposed to act against that which is 'self'. Occasionally, the immune system fails to make this distinction and creates auto-antibodies and cytotoxic T-cells, which attack and destroy the body's own tissues and organs. This attack by the immune system against the 'self' is known as an autoimmune response.

While the immune system is meant to protect the body from the invasion of viruses, bacteria, and external pathogens, in an autoimmune disease, the body actually attacks cells and tissues belonging to the body itself. This self-attack is accompanied by an immune overreaction, such as the creation of auto-antibodies and the development of inflammation in various parts of the body. As a result, an autoimmune disease can cause damage to various systems and organs, such as cirrhosis of the liver, for example.

An autoimmune disease is a chronic disease for which there is no cure. Therefore, treatment focuses on relieving the patient's symptoms and attempting to reduce or suppress the immune system in order to provide patients with autoimmune diseases a better quality of life. Research conducted in recent years has yielded new treatments to alleviate the symptoms of autoimmune diseases. The very knowledge that the disease is chronic weakens the ability of patients and their families to cope, leading to a feeling of "I will never be healthy again."

Damage to the central nervous system can bring with it many symptoms, most of which are described on this site. Some of these symptoms are very unique to neurological injuries because they are "invisible" (unseen). The person suffering from the symptoms can feel them intensely, in a way that limits function and causes significant discomfort; yet to an outside observer, the patient looks exactly as they did before, completely healthy.

Among the "invisible" symptoms, one can find fatigue, electrical sensations (such as tingling), sensory changes, heat sensitivity, pain, and others.

In situations where communication is poor, these symptoms can lead to a sense of distress. The person with "invisible" symptoms feels the fatigue (for example) so powerfully that, in their perception, it cannot be missed: "I am so exhausted, it is taking over my whole body—how can anyone not see this?"

Because of this perception, the person experiencing fatigue (or any other invisible symptom) expects others to see the difficulty, even though they look the same from the outside. People around them have no way of knowing how hard it is for them in those moments, or how truly tired they are.

Sometimes, in moments of struggle, patients want others to know exactly what they are feeling without having to explain. This feeling is natural and legitimate. The problem begins when we turn this legitimate feeling into an expectation of those around us—expecting them to understand without us explaining, and even worse, becoming disappointed and angry when the fantasy does not come true: "How can they not see what I need right now?"

Precisely for this reason, we are committed to fostering communication so that we can understand the disease better, recognize the needs of the patients, provide hope in these low places, and lift them up from there.