Q:
What are the causes of mesenteric panniculitis?
A:
Mesenteric panniculitis is also called sclerosing mesenteritis by some doctors. It is a rare disorder that affects you’re the fat cells in the mesentery. The mesentery is a fold of tissue in your abdomen that attaches the intestine to the abdominal wall.
Causes
At present, the direct cause of mesenteric panniculitis is still unknown. But according to professional doctors, mesenteric panniculitis is possibly a type of autoimmune disease.
Though your immune system usually fend off bacterias, virus, and germs, it sometimes mistakenly attacks your own tissues. In this specific case, it attacks your mesentery.
For now, no one knows the exact cause of the autoimmune disease, but it does tend to run in families. Also, women, especially African-American, Hispanic-American, and Native-American women, have a higher risk for some types of autoimmune diseases than men.
For mesenteric panniculitis, there may be a genetic link. Patients with mesenteric panniculitis are likely to have a blood relative with autoimmune diseases.
Besides, other incidents to your abdomen and mesentery may also lead to mesenteric panniculitis, such as infections, surgeries, cancer disease.
Symptoms
Individuals with mesenteric panniculitis experience abdominal pain when the mesentery pain becomes bad enough. Other symptoms may include:
- Feeling full after eating very little and having no appetite
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Constipation
- Fatigue
- Fever
- Weight loss
Keywords: mesenteric panniculitis; causes; symptoms; genetic link; autoimmune disease; Q&A
