Artigenda
World Sjögren’s Day
When: annually, July 23.
World Sjögren's Day
There are plenty of special days. These days are not always fun. A day like World Sjögren’s Day is a necessary day and is not fun. The day takes place on 23 July every year and is meant to call attention to Sjögren’s Syndrome. A terrible disease.
The day is a reference to the birthday of Henrik Sjögren (23 July 1899 – 17 September 1986). Sjögren was a Swedish ophthalmologist and the first to publish about the disease, having come into contact with a 49-year-old patient in 1927. Based on 19 other cases, he diagnosed equivalent symptoms and published about it in 1933. You can read more about it at this website.
Symptoms
Sjögren’s syndrome is an autoimmune disease in which tissue is affected by inflammation. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you consider that it involves damage that can occur to salivary and tear glands, causing patients to suffer from fatigue, in addition to pain in muscles and joints, it is much worse. The symptoms are described on this website.
If more was known about the cause of the disease, it might have led to a solution. Now it remains “merely” symptom management. That is after it has been established that there is Sjögren’s syndrome. Sometimes this may have been preceded by years of diagnosis. In some cases, Sjögren’s syndrome can lead to the development of lymphoma (5 – 7% chance). Hence, strict controls are needed.
More information
The information about Sjögren and this day is available on the Sjögren’s Foundation.
