Though there is no stock answer as to the cause of Sjogren's, nearly all medical info will state that it may be caused by bacterial or viral infections, so here is a list of (some) of the bacterial.
BTW, all of the sudden it seems as though links are unavailable to pass on info. Is it me, my computer or the fact that my grandson has been using this?.
http://doctors-hospitals-medical-cape-town-south-africa.blaauwberg.net/details.php?id=753
Thanks for the link, SK. The links on that page seem to be working ok when I've clicked on some of them. It would be good to know the real cause of all these autoimmune diseases. I read a book by Hannah Yoseph MD who talks about mycoplasms that have run amok and show up in blood work from people who have autoimmune diseases.
Thank you. I only heard of a virus cOnnection; nothing about bacteria. But I had a dentist make a mistake in my mouth which led to tremendous permanent pain. during the turmoil, I had fever. I also had other big stressors simultaneously. Next thing I knew, I got the SS dx. ??? I suppose we all wonder what in the world happened??? Are we sure the trigger could be viral or bacterial???
Yes, both viral and bacterial. Please read my post on Tim Rooney and I have also read from SS patients who suffered from either bacterial or viral infections early in their lives and now have SS or both SS and another autoimmune disease even multiple AD's.
"May have been caused by a viral or bacterial infection" is how it is worded in everything I have read on the matter. Surely heredity is a factor, my Rheumatologist assures me of that. An infection could be a trigger, or one of many triggers. Injury and stress are surely other high likelihood triggers or causes.
No, no one is sure right now. We may think that there is nothing on the list, or in addition to the list, that could have triggered our illness, but perhaps there is a flu that we just never really got rid of ?
Yes, Mytoplasmas have been thrown in the discussion ring before, it may have been on the PsA or Fibro site that I first noticed them. They are essentially a bacteria that lacks a cell wall and because of this characteristic most common antibiotics are ineffectual as they target cell wall synthesis. From my take on it, that is the shortest of answers, but someone correct me if I'm not on target here, please.
Nomad, oh my gosh, what a scary story about your dentist! You got me thinking because I had a dentist decades ago in NY, who turned out to be a dentist who messed up a lot of people's mouths. He kept having to replace a filling he put in every year. Every year, the decay kept going and he had to keep removing the filling he did and re-do it. Then I moved to CA and stayed away from dentists for 10 years. Then I went to one after having sinus pain on that side and that same tooth was infected up into the sinuses. He did a root canal, but the infection would not stop coming out. I was on strong antibiotics and he put in spongy material so it could drain. But at the end of 10 days, it was still draining but he plugged it up anyway. I just recently had another dentist go up in there again and remove decayed material inside that same tooth which came from my chronic dry mouth. I felt immediately better after he did that. I didn't feel fluey anymore. BUT.....I'm wondering if what first happened decades ago with that bad dentist didn't cause this SS illness in me now. You have to wonder.
How awful that you both had to go through this. It's tough enough to withstand the workings of a good and capable DDSm much less a nightmare one! So sorry you both had to go through this. The less invasive things I go through, the better I am!
Wow, I find the viral/bacterial theory to be fascinating. A few years ago I developed what seemed to be a really severe case of the flu, but unlike any flu I had ever remembered having before. It came on fast and hard without the usual "pre" symptoms where you're thinking, "Oh crap, I'm getting sick". Within just a few days my husband said (demanded!) that we were going to Urgent Care. Describing my symptoms I had a fever, vomiting, diarrhea, severe dizziness, chills, sweats, bad headaches, the feeling I was going to faint every time I sat up or stood, and the worst was my description of the pain. I said I felt as if my bones were made of broken glass. Basically I was hurting from the inside out. I had virtually kept nothing down for 4 or 5 days and ended up losing 12 pounds by the weeks end. (I'm one of those tiny little twigs, and that much weight gone left me looking like a corpse...kinda feeling like one, too.) I told my husband that I truly felt like I was dying. Of course, going to Urgent Care or the ER, you take your chances on the coin flip of a doctor you end up with and I got one I didn't know. Anyway, she said some of my symptoms sounded viral and some bacterial. And then in her innate wisdom she gave me a pain killer to be taken...with food...after telling her I hadn't kept anything down for several days. I went back to work after a week and came back home after about half a day. I worked sporadically for the next month and it took me about 6 months to gain the weight back and feel relatively normal. At around the same time, one of my sisters had the same thing. We had not physically seen each other for quite some time before this so neither of us felt we had given it to the other. Bottom line was that I have never ever been that sick in my life, before or since. It sure makes me wonder if that's what my trigger was for Sjogrens.
I was triggered by a case of food poisoning - the GP I saw at the time described it as Giardia - a parasitic infection, but I was acutely ill for about 8 months and then sick ever since. There definitely seems to be a trigger in most cases. In my case I was in abdominal pain, vomiting and faint for months.