Are autoimmune diseases contagious?

There are still so many things that people may not know about autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases are not contagious. It does not mean that because you are close to someone who has an autoimmune disease, it already means that you will get it too. It can be genetic, though.

This means that if your parents have some genes and traits that are related to autoimmune disease, you have a higher chance of acquiring them too. If in case you are not too familiar with what an autoimmune disease is, this is the process by which the body turns against itself. It makes the body weaker because it attacks healthy cells.

No, autoimmune diseases are not contagious. They are not caused by infections or any known factor in particular. This means you cannot get this from someone, and it cannot be transferred to another person. Scientists believe that autoimmune diseases are caused by combinations of factors. Certain genes passed down from parents to their offspring make their children susceptible to autoimmune disease.

Other factors that trigger autoimmune diseases are infections, environmental factors, use of certain drugs, stress, and hormonal imbalance. The symptoms of autoimmune diseases managed by the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids, and immunosuppressant medications, treating deficiencies caused by the disease, using pain-killing medications and surgery.

Autoimmune diseases typically are not contagious. You can't catch an autoimmune disease from another person like you can a virus or bacteria. They do not spread to other people the way infections can. Autoimmune diseases are not contagious by sex or blood. The only known transfer of autoimmune illnesses occurs between mother and fetus during pregnancy, and even this is still a rarity in affected mothers.

Even autoimmune diseases caused by white blood cells do not seem to be contagious by transfusion, organ transplant, or shared needles. Genetics also plays a part, which is why someone with lupus, for example, will often have family members with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or thyroid issues.