Cysic Fibrosis

What is it?

 Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder that affects the endocrine system. The endocrine system works to get rid of waste your body produces. Your body excretes waste in various forms, one important substance your body secretes is mucus. Mucus lines your organs and some body cavities; it traps bacteria that could potentially harm your body. The mucus in your body is wet and slippery. However, if you have cystic fibrosis your body produces large quantities of unusually thick mucus.
This cause a number of problems

Your mucus starts to build up in various ducts and starts to block areas that would normally  secrete important enzymes. Enzymes are proteins in cells that speeds up and facilitate various chemical reactions. The blockage also causes painful inflammation.

When mucus stays in one place for long its prone to infection. The most serious infections are of the lungs. This is common in people with CF

Thick mucus blocks airway in lungs, this leads to extreme difficulty breathing


The lack of enzymes really creates body chaos. this is a big cause for many partner diseases caused by CF...like just having CF wasn't bad enough


Some examples:

Liver diseases
Diabetes
Arthritis
Pancrititus



Also, Here are symptoms just causes by CF:



Again...you really can't breath when you have CF


Treatment:

Well you may be thinking, "what a crap sickness to have". It is, and like most terrible sicknesses there is no cure.
However, you can always manage the symptoms to keep yourself from dying.
This includes:
Medication for infections
Organ transplant, (very temporary, does give you more time to live in the diseases final stages)
Various natural and non-natural remedies to clear airway mucus
Vitamin supplements, to make up for what your body cant produce

Its just sad, you think people don't get sick like this. But they do, one person dies because of cystic fibrosis a week and the average life expectancy is around 32 years. (In Canada)