Amyloidosis Awareness Intervention

What is Amyloidosis? Amyloidosis is a debilitating disease that occurs when amyloid proteins build in your organs.

Amyloid is an abnormal protein usually produced by cells in your bone marrow that can be deposited in any tissue or organ. Amyloidosis can affect different organs in different people, and there are many types of amyloid. Amyloidosis frequently affects the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, nervous system and gastrointestinal tract. (Source: Mayo Clinic).

Unhealthy proteins are deposited in the organs and tissues, creating irreversible damage. The walls of the heart and the tissues of the lungs are often attacked first.

Amyloidosis affects the body’s organs. Amyloidosis sufferers have trouble breathing, walking short distances, experience chest pain, and have all around poor health.

Because there is no cure, chemotherapy and stem cell transplant are often used to treat the disease. These leave permanent side effects such as drug dependency, nerve damage, and heart failure. For more information about amyloidosis visit one of the few medical centers studying amyloidosis in the United States (Source: Who is amy?).

The Amyloidosis Foundation estimates that approximately 3,000 people are diagnosed with amyloidosis each year in North America and that blood cancers overall have increased more than 40% in the last decade.

Make a donation today to the Amyloidosis Foundation. If you can help, please help this vital organization. Make a difference.