Therapy
Due to the complexity of the clinical picture, the treatment of polymyositis is accordingly difficult. Like all autoimmune diseases, treatment attempts are made in the direction of throttling the immune system. Cortisone and so-called immunosuppressive drugs reduce the performance of the immune system.
Pain treatment is carried out with anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving drugs (e.g. ibuprofen or diclofenac). Sometimes also the drugs known from rheumatology, such as MTX, are used. Physical rest can be useful if the muscle pain becomes very severe. However, care should be taken to ensure that the muscles do not atrophy due to lack of exercise. One of the last treatment approaches is the filtering of the blood, in which plasma is taken from the patient and cleaned before it can be re-infused.
Is polymyositis inheritable?
Polymyositis falls under the large umbrella term of idiopathic myositides, a disease that is caused by an autoimmune reaction against the body’s own skeletal muscle cell components. Why the body initiates this erroneous reaction in some patients has not yet been fully clarified, but familial clustering and certain hereditary characteristics indicate a possible hereditary component. However, in addition to the assumption that polymyositis is hereditary, certain environmental influences (e.g. viral infections) and malignant tumor diseases (e.g. lung, breast, stomach, pancreatic cancer) are also assumed to be triggers for this autoimmune disease.
