Family History Definition

[gll]

I was wondering what (or who) counts as "family history of autoimmune" in relation to diagnosis?
Is it limited to parents and siblings or does it extend to grandparents and aunts / uncles etc?

I'm pulling in family medical history and stuff is showing up 🙄

*edit - blood relatives of course and not via marriage

 

[Nick Cliff]

Hi @gll and Happy New Year.
I don't know the answer, but assume that the more information you can provide, the better. When asked to do something similar in relation to cancer I was asked to include grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, children, grandchildren... basically anyone in the family tree that had had a related condition.
Hope this helps. Nick

 

[Robin]

I could only produce a great grandmother who had Diabetes listed as a cause of death on her certificate,(1921, I think, one year before Insulin was discovered) and they dismissed that as irelevant.

 

[Leadinglights]

The genetics of autoimmune conditions is very complicated and I suspect some of the 'experts' don't fully understand it.
Apparently some conditions can be passed back from a child to the mother from when the foetus was in the womb.
Autoimmune conditions don't necessarily manifest themselves as the same in other relatives.
Sometimes a few skeletons in the cupboard are revealed when people delve into their ancestry and also a few wrong conclusions.

 

[gll]

thanks for the replies 🙂

Aunt has MS, wasn't sure if she is close enough that it should be considered.

 

[helli]

Interestingly, I recently read something about including children which surprised me.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I'm the 4th generation type1 🙂 My lovely Uncle died last year he was 86 and developed type1 about 6 mths after I did.

I'm the only one with MS and Addison's though.
Autoimmune deafness runs in the family on both sides. Thyroid probs on both sides.

Wearing sulky pants at the moment I can honestly say I appear to have been targeted with more than my fair share of autoimmune conditions.

 

[AndBreathe]

I was wondering what (or who) counts as "family history of autoimmune" in relation to diagnosis?
Is it limited to parents and siblings or does it extend to grandparents and aunts / uncles etc?

I'm pulling in family medical history and stuff is showing up 🙄

*edit - blood relatives of course and not via marriage

It depends what the condition is and where the relative sits in the big family map. Different conditions will often follow the male/female line, and some often jump generations

A couple of years ago I went through an exercise with my Endo, who was flabbergasted at the amount of AI conditions in my close and wider family (blood lines only, obviously). He ordered up a massive panel of tests. The phlebotomist (who never asks why anything is being done), enquired why I was having SO many tests.

Cutting to the results, I dodged every single AI bullet, so far.

Whatever you do, please don't get hung up on the old "everybody in my family develops x, y or z, therefore it's coming my way", because it certainly doesn't always work out that way.