To aid the heart in getting the blood from the heart to the rest of the body, a series of blood vessels are all in the human body. Three different types of vessels that make up the vascular system are arteries, which take blood away from the heart, veins, which take blood to the heart and capillaries, which connect the arteries to the veins. Vasculitis occurs when the different vessels inflame, causing less blood to get to the necessary parts of the body that require blood. Vasculitis comes from the Latin word vasculum and itis at the end. When there is a problem with the arteries, it is called arteritis and when there is a problem with the veins, it is called venulitis. There are many types of vasculitis, such as Kawasaki disease, Behcet’s syndrome and Wegener’s Granulomatosis. All of these different types have different traits to them, which makes curing vasculitis so difficult because there are so many types.

The cause of vasculitis really does depend upon the type of vasculitis you have and other situations as well. However, some causes could be cancer (such as lymphoma and leukemia), infections (Hepatitis B), and many other situations. To diagnose vasculitis, a doctor would need to conduct a series of tests. Some symptoms of vasculitis include, but are not limited to: fatigue, fever, weight loss, muscle and joint pain, and loss of appetite. While these symptoms seem almost generic, since a lot of diseases have similar symptoms, if for some reason you feel worried about the above symptoms, go to a doctor and they will do their job in attempting to diagnose you. The only definitive way to diagnose vasculitis, though, is with a biopsy. Many different parts of the body can be used for a biopsy, some of which include skin, lung, nerve and sinuses. All of these could be used to test whether or not a patient has vasculitis. Once the doctors came to the conclusion that the patient did, in fact, have vasculitis, they could begin to test for the type of vasculitis. Knowing the type is a lot more important than knowing that the patient does have it.

To cure vasculitis depends on a few things. The first is how extreme the case really is to the patient. If it’s a very mild case, the patent might not need extensive treatments. However, if it’s a very bad case, the patient might need some serious treatments in the hopes of curing the patient of vasculitis. The main goal of treatments is to stop the vessels from inflaming and to limit the immune system so that inflammation decreases. For this to happen, doctors could prescribe prednisone, a cortisone-related drug. Along with that medication, other types of immune suppressors could be used. For example, Cytoxan could be used, if the doctors felt that the case was that extreme and it needed that medicine. If for some reason, organs in the body have had extreme damage due to loss of blood or any of that, other medicines could be prescribed. Some organs that would need to be looked at after vasculitis was diagnosed are the heart, the lungs, the brain and other organs in the many different systems of the body. As time does go on, though, more treatments will appear.