Question: how do you get a bad immune system

Emily Robinson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Well diviatasha, in my research your immune system isn’t ‘bad’ as such it is more confused! The reason the immune system starts attacking our brain is that it thinks it is helping, but really it is just attacking your healthy brain. This also happens in autoimmune diseases in the rest of the body. In arthritis your immune system starts to attack your joints in the same way when there is no problem. Both these situations cause inflammation. Inflammation is characterised by 5 different things: heat, pain, swelling, redness and loss of function. It is easy to imagine all these signs if you did something silly like hit your thumb with a hammer (please don’t try this at home!). Your thumb would swell, go red, feel hot, hurt and if it was really bad you could lose some function. But the brain reacts to inflammation in the same 5 ways but it is just harder to tell that it is happening! So your immune system can get confused and cause inflammation. My research will hopefully find a way to stop your body from causing inflammation in your brain and reduce brain damage. Do you understand?