Amyloidosis – Abnormal Protein Deposited In The Body’s Tissues!

When your body organs accumulate excess amounts of amyloid proteins, it is usually referred as amyloidosis.

Amyloid protein is usually deposited in certain localized areas of your body such as bone marrow and affects only single tissue of your body.

In many cases, amyloidosis shows few or no symptoms. On the other hand, in certain cases, it produces severe symptoms and fatal complications.

Depending on the damage done by the excess protein deposits and also on the type of body organs affected, some of the manifestations associated with amyloidosis mainly include:

  • Unexpected weight loss and fatigue.
  • Enlarged tongue and difficulty in swallowing or chewing food or any other fluids.
  • Loss of memory and numbness.
  • Rashes on the skin and extreme muscle weakness and also joint pain.
  • Vomiting and blood in stool.
  • Breathing problems.
  • Chronic diarrhea and also excessive formation of gas.

Amyloidosis affects different organs of body such as heart, kidneys, spleen, gastrointestinal tract and also nervous system, in different people.

The exact cause for this excess accumulation of amyloid protein is unknown and there is no cure for this unusual health condition.

However, there are certain therapies that can help you to manage your symptoms and also to limit the excess production of amyloid protein in various tissues of your body.

Treatment options to alleviate the symptoms!

Initial treatment of amyloidosis mainly involves correcting particular organ failure and then treating other underlying diseases such as infections, myeloma and many more.

However, amyloidosis is diagnosed after encountering any organ failure in your body. Certain treatment options available to treat amyloidosis can mainly include:

  • Chemotherapy: Melphalan is a chemotherapy agent used to treat various types of cancer. This chemotherapy agent along with corticosteroids, dexamethasone is used in the treatment of amyloidosis to get better anti-inflammatory effects.
  • Peripheral blood stem cell transplantation: In this therapy, high-dose chemotherapy and transfusion of immature blood cells is used to replace the damaged blood cells in your body.
  • Liver transplantation: If you are suffering with hereditary amyloidosis, then your doctor can recommend liver transplantation. This is due to the reason that the protein that is responsible for this kind of hereditary amyloidosis mostly accumulates in liver.
  • Medications for underlying illnesses: When you have secondary amyloidosis, the main aim of providing therapy is to treat the underlying health conditions by using anti-inflammatory medications for arthritis.

As no one knows why some of you get amyloidosis and why not other individuals, there is no way to prevent this unusual accumulation of amyloid protein.

Maintain well balanced diet and include enough physical activity in your routine to improve the quality of life. Consult your personal health care provider regularly and get proper health checkups to identify other health complications in early stages.