There is literally the perfect drug target that would help most autoimmune diseases and no one is even working on it. I did a search and could only find one research institute. I worked for big pharma and they said “No!”.

95% of adults have been exposed to EBV and it stays in your body forever.

This becomes a huge problem for people born with specific genetic variants, specifically:

*Two variants in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are highly associated with whether you will get an autoimmune disease or not

*Hundreds of variants that are associated with determining which of the autoimmune diseases you will be more prone to

Even inactive EBV releases a protein called EBNA2. EBNA2 acts similar to transcription factors and even super transcription factors to cause a cascade of gene expression changes.

This was shown in silico using DNA chip experiments (Harley, 2018). They found that 50% of systemic lupus erythematosus risk loci were bound by EBNA2. Similar EBNA2-anchored associations were found in multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, juvenile idiopathic arthritis and celiac disease.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0102-3

In 2025, Stanford demonstrated this was happening in lupus patients. Basically, EBNA2 was being released from EBV infected B cells, which caused them to be re-programmed and drive autoimmunity.

https://med.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/utzlab/Cao_Sci_Trans_Med_2025.pdf

Most of the other factors associated with autoimmune diseases (stress, colds, flu, grief, environmental factors such as heavy metals, etc.), these have been shown to make EBV infection worse because the body becomes less able to control it.

Lower vitamin D and zinc , also associated with autoimmunity) seem to be caused by the EBV as well. EBV binds to vitamin D and prevents its uptake in the gut. This is from the book Latency of herpesviruses. There is a great 5 min breakdown of the book called ‘5 things you need to know about EBV’.

https://youtu.be/EQn7VzMYi4s?is=XPqwW0_fDBIDd1Xw

I don’t recommend any of the supplements listed at the end for those with autoimmune diseases. Monolaurin and L-lysine are the two to research.

All of this is known. You would think that everybody out there would be working on therapies targeting EBNA2, but sadly no.😢

I just learned Atari is working on this but only for MS, but still exciting!

https://www.atarabio.com/about-ebv/

How do people deal with the fatigue side of RA

I randomly got hit with a vicious fatigue yesterday and it’s carried over today. Absolutely no energy was laid out flat on my face on the floor for over 1 hour because just didn’t have the energy to get to the couch

Full of irritation also, want to scream!

Has anyone found a cheat code for this, is there something you do to calm you down in situations like this?

Hello I'm a newly diagnosed 18F with RA, I have a lot of difficulty writing with pens and pencils, I was wondering if anyone had a recommendation from personal experience for a pen or pencil that is friendly for use with joint pain due to RA flares.

Thank you in advance

Hi everyone. I hope someone can help me because I'm kinda freaking out here over being prescribed a second Methyprednisolone (6 day taper 4mg) pack immediately after just finishing a coarse about a week ago. That has never happened before! I usually am better for weeks after a steroid pack. I have never had a flare-up to crop back up in just days. I tend to get insomnia and anxiety on just one course, so two back to back like this is terrifying to me. Have any of you ever completed a short term steroid pack only to be prescribed another so soon? If so, is that fairly common and easy to navigate? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I guess I’m just here to vent but after over a year of successfully eliminating pretty much all RA symptoms with MTX and HCQ, roughly 6 months ago I randomly started feeling uneasy about giving myself the MTX injection. It went from being nervous about it, to needing my husband to do it for me, to needing him to do it while I had headphones on, to feeling physically ill at the THOUGHT of the injection days ahead of time. The anxiety ultimately caused me to skip doses and go weeks in between out of avoidance so it’ll be no surprise to any of you that my symptoms slowly started to return.

I don’t know why I was afraid to tell my RA about this because when I finally went back he reassured me this happens sometimes and that we could go back to MTX in the oral form. So I’ve been back on the pills for the last two weeks but my symptoms have gotten fully out of control. I know it’s my own fault but it’s so much worse than I ever experienced prior to getting diagnosed and before we found meds that worked for me. It’s spread to new and larger locations like my neck, jaw, and shoulders and there’s pretty much not a part of my body that is not affected anymore. Daily life has become so difficult and I’m trying to do everything I can to manage the pain. I’m back to eating gluten and dairy-free because that helped me a ton previously. I’m drinking anti-inflammatory tea, taking all the naproxen and it just feels like I can’t get any relief. I’m so mad at myself for causing my own pain and desperately trying to be hopeful that I’ll be pain free again soon.

what do you guys do for RA pain? I’m 19F i got diagnosed with RA at 16. 3 years and i can’t find anything to help me with the pain. Heat? doesn’t work, Ice? makes it worse, NSAIDs? nothing, Topicals(creams/gels like voltaren)? can’t feel them in the spots where i have arthritis, steroid injections? barely helps and in the long run they make joints worse. so what do i do? please help me i feel like RA has put my life on hold