What Is Inflammatory Muscle Disease?
Inflammatory muscle disease is a group of muscle diseases where there is inflammation and breakdown of muscles. Many of these conditions are autoimmune diseases in which one’s own immune system “attacks” the muscles, causing muscle and weakness. These include dermatomyositis which is an autoimmune muscle disease that is associated with both muscle weakness and skin changes and rashes. Necrotizing myopathies are associated with exposure to certain cholesterol medications or anti-signal recognition particle antibodies (SRP) and can be very severe. Overlap myositis is a group of autoimmune inflammatory muscle diseases associated with different antibodies or other rheumatological diseases. These autoimmune muscle diseases can be treated with a variety of medications that suppress or change the immune system to prevent further attack on the muscles. Another type of inflammatory muscle disease includes inclusion body myositis (IBM). This condition causes muscle degeneration and inflammation and tends to affect the thigh muscles and handgrip muscles early in the disease. There are no known treatments for this condition yet, but physical therapy can help to improve daily function.