Being diagnosed with any disease can be scary. There are some that are obviously more notorious for their effects on a person – cancer, HIV/AIDS, etc. I’m not going to try and downplay any of the pain and suffering that people afflicted with those ailments experience.
- The swelling of the kidneys and other related problems
- Endocarditis, or the inflammation of the inner layer of the heart
- Atherosclerosis (more prone)
- Increased tear production (generally happens one eye at a time)
- Inflammation of the outer white part of the eye (scleritis) can cause blindness; so can uveitis, the inflammation of the middle layers of the eye (I had this as a youngster, misdiagnosed as pink eye because the rash was present on my eyeball)
- Anemia. Yes, we’ve talked about it before and it doesn’t seem to be a huge problem. However, behavioral problems in young people can be explained by this disease. It can also affect the heart and tolerance to cold. Living in Wisconsin with anemia sucks.
- Damage to the nerves and nervous system (peripheral neuropathy and mononeuritis multiplex)
- Atlantoaxial subluxation, or basically a fracture or other problem involving the first few vertebrae in the neck
- The above two problems can also lead to quadriplegia
- Osteoporosis (more prone)
- Lymphoma (more prone)
- And the piece de resistance, swelling of the brain. This can lead to dementia as well as, oh, death. Yeah, nice right?