Are you sick? Or are you just imagining that something's wrong?
Many women who have reported these symptoms to their doctor have
been dismissed as hypochondriacs or suffering from anxiety. But
the real diagnosis is much more subtle, at least at first. Those
symptoms may indicate one of a host of autoimmune diseases such
as lupus or multiple sclerosis that develop gradually over time,
and strike women many times more frequently than men. There are
about 80 forms of autoimmune disease, and about 75 percent of
them occur in women, most often in their childbearing years.
Most are rare diseases, yet taken together, they affect about 50
million Americans, or 20 percent of the population. A thyroid
disease called Hashimoto's thyroiditis occurs in women 50 times
more often than in men. Even more commonly known diseases such
as lupus occur up to nine times more often in women. Due to the
subtlety and non-specific symptoms of many autoimmune
conditions, several years may elapse before an accurate
diagnosis is made, rep