Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis

5-Year-Old Diagnosed with Rare Autoimmune Disease to Undergo Bone Marrow Transplant

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Paige Neale is a lively 5-year-old girl living with a rare and debilitating autoimmune disease. Image courtesy of Fox News.

5-year-old Paige Neale of Maryland has an autoimmune disease so rare, scientists believe that there are only 100 people on the planet who have ever had it.

The disease is called lipopolysaccharide-responsive and beige-like anchor protein deficiency, or LRBA deficiency for short. The autoimmune disease causes Paige’s body to attack her joints and internal organs, like her stomach and lungs. Paige was diagnosed with the rare autoimmune disease when her parents noticed that she was getting sick a lot more often than her fellow peers her age, including suffering from swollen joints and various GI issues.

Commenting on his daughter’s diagnosis, Mike Neale said: “It’s such a tough diagnosis because you don’t know what to expect…what laid ahead for her, and what do we do next?”

According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the disease is caused by a genetic mutation in the LRBA gene. Patients with the condition are highly susceptible to infections, especially of the upper respiratory tract. LRBA deficiency can also cause various symptoms, including poor blood clotting, anemia, weakness, fatigue, joint pain, stiffness, and eye inflammation (uveitis). It can also make patients more susceptible to developing other autoimmune conditions, such as vitiligo, psoriasis, and type 1 diabetes, which cause additional symptoms as well.

For her part, Paige was also diagnosed with the autoimmune condition juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in addition to LRBA deficiency. To keep her alive, Paige receives bi-weekly shots that cost thousands of dollars, but a new procedure is giving Paige’s family hope for the future. Their little girl is to receive a bone marrow transplant in April from her 3-year-old sister, who happens to be a 100% match.

“Right now you look at her, and she looks like a completely healthy five-year-old girl,” said her father Mike. He continued, “We tend to forget how sick she was leading up to that, so we question ourselves: Should we be putting her through this bone marrow transplant that is going to destroy her immune system and make her really sick?”

If the procedure is successful, however, Paige will no longer need to get bi-weekly injections, and she’ll be able to go on to lead a normal life – an end result that her father says is the ultimate goal. Paige enjoys skiing and horseback riding – activities that have given her and her family a sense of normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and throughout her vigorous treatment regimen.

To follow along with Paige’s heartwarming story, check out the Pray 4 Paige Facebook Group.

Is This Illness Related to COVID-19 Autoimmune?

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Healthcare professionals are grappling with the effects of pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MICS), a complication of COVID-19 in children

Across the world, disturbing reports are coming through detailing a new complication thought to be related to COVID-19 that is affecting children with the virus. The illness, called pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MICS for short, causes the immune system to overreact, leading to dangerously high levels of inflammation throughout the body. It impacts the body’s major organs, including the heart, liver, and kidneys, among other parts of the body.

Juliet Daly, a 12-year old girl from Louisiana, was diagnosed with both COVID-19 and MICS after going through cardiac arrest. Thankfully, she was airlifted to a children’s hospital, where she was put on a ventilator until she could breath on her own and her heart and other organs had recovered.

Juliet Daly was diagnosed with COVID-19 and pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome after being admitted to the hospital. Image courtesy of CNN.

Pediatric multisystem inflammatory sundrome has been compared to Kawasaki disease, an inflammatory condition primarily found in children under age five that impacts the heart’s coronary arteries. Kawsaki disease can lead to complications like artery enlargement, aneurysms, issues with the lymph nodes, skin, and the lining of the nose, throat and mouth. Some experts hypothesize that the coronavirus could be a trigger for Kawasaki disease. A recent study done in Bergamo, Italy found that the incidence of a ‘severe, Kawasaki-like disease’ increased 30-fold after the virus broke out in the region, further supporting this theory.

Pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome also bears the hallmarks of a cytokine storm, a phenomenon in which the body’s immune system overreacts to the virus and mounts a harmful inflammatory response in the body.

This raises the question, is MICS autoimmune in nature? While little is known about the condition, Dr. Randall Williams, Director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said during a recent press conference that the condition is an “autoimmune reaction“, and that “it’s basically where your body reacts to an antigen and starts attacking itself.”

The relationship between viruses and autoimmune disease has been studied in the past. For example, studies have found a link between the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and the pathogenesis of a number of autoimmune diseases including lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, and celiac disease.

Though there isn’t a cure for MICS, it’s treated by giving patients steroid and intravenous medications commonly issued to patients with an autoimmune disease, in an effort to decrease damaging inflammation.

While the coronavirus has proven to be less common and less deadly in children than adults, two young children and a teen with COVID-19 who showed Kawasaki disease symptoms have died in the state of New York. As a result, parents are advised to take precautions and contact their pediatrician or family medicine provider if your child has a fever to determine the best next steps.

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Why Autoimmune Patients with COVID-19 Should Beware of the Cytokine Storm

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As the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 disease continues to infect people and claim lives across the globe, scientists and medical professionals are learning more about its impact on patients.

One interesting phenomenon that’s been observed is that some coronavirus patients experience relatively mild to moderate symptoms, while others experience severe, life-threatening problems that can land them in the ER. According to Sharp Health News, the virus itself may not be entirely to blame for this, but rather, an overreaction by the body’s immune system.

When a foreign agent, such as a virus, invades your body, your immune cells secrete cytokines, which are molecules that initiate an immune response. However, in some cases, immune cells continue to secrete cytokines, even after a sufficient immune response has been mounted. This is called a ‘cytokine storm’ and the overproduction of these molecules can cause a harmful inflammatory response in the body.

Certain people are more susceptible to cytokine storms than others; for example, there is evidence that those with genetic mutations in their immune cells are more vulnerable. According to creakyjoints.org, those with autoimmune conditions often have abnormally high levels of these cytokines, which is why autoimmune patients often take immune-suppressing medications. However, a cytokine storm isn’t the same as an autoimmune disease flare, though they can be related.

As detailed by creakyjoints.org, some autoimmune patients end up with cytokine storms unrelated to COVID-19. Dr. Randy Cron, a pediatric rheumatologist and author of the book Cytokine Storm Syndrome commented, “About 10% of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis will experience [a cytokine storm]; in some cases, multiple times.”

With regards to COVID-19, which is respiratory in nature, a cytokine storm can gravely impact a patient. Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common consequence of a cytokine storm occurring in the lungs, and if a lung infection is severe, the inflammation will spread to the rest of the body via one’s blood circulation and cause sepsis. In some cases, the immune response to an infection can even be deadly.

That’s why it’s important to ‘calm the storm’ and prevent a cytokine storm before it even happens. One type of treatment being explored for COVID-19 is hydroxychloroquine, which is an antiviral and immunosuppressant drug used to treat malaria and autoimmune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Sjogren’s. Although the medication is still undergoing clinical trials, many are hopeful that this drug will serve as a treatment to halt the progression of COVID-19.

Besides pharmaceutical therapies, Sharp Health News cites curcumin, a compound found in turmeric, as beneficial for its anti-inflammatory properties. A 2015 study states that in lab experiments, researchers found that curcumin blocked the release of the cytokines that are responsible for inflammation.

All in all, it’s important for autoimmune patients to guard against the coronavirus by adhering to strict hygiene guidelines, such as hand washing thoroughly with soap and water, avoiding close contact with others, and disinfecting surfaces routinely. Remember, prevention is the best form of treatment, and can help those with autoimmune disease to avoid a damaging cytokine storm.