Autoimmune diseases attack millions of people around the world,
but no one is quite sure how many people suffer or what these
diseases take out of the world For three years after Yvonne
Norton gave birth to her second son, she had a host of
mysterious symptoms that left her family doctor baffled. Time
and time again, she sought his advice, to no avail. In
desperation, she even visited a psychiatrist who also had no
answers, other than to say, "Whatever is wrong with you, it
isn't in your head." Then, one day in 1975, she landed in a
hospital with complete heart failure. For three days she lay
unconscious, coming around to learn that seven pints of fluid
had been drained from her lungs and that she was being treated
with high doses of cortisone. Six months later, the steroids
were wreaking havoc on her body, without improving her symptoms.
"At one point, my son got into a fight at school with a kid who
called me a swollen monkey," she recalls. "I thought, 'this is
serious'." Norton, who lives near Wolverhampto