Ashton Kucher | "I'm lucky to be alive": what is vasculitis, the disease that almost left the actor blind and deaf

Giulia Granchi
BBC News Brazil

5 hours

image source, Noam Galai/Getty Images

Caption,

Ashton Kutcher said that he had a strong episode of this autoimmune disease.

Actor Ashton Kutcher, 44, revealed that he was unable to see, hear or walk due to vasculitis, an autoimmune disease.

He discussed his experience with this disease on the National Geographic show “Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge,” which presents Bear Grylls.

Kutcher said he was diagnosed with a type of autoimmune vasculitis, without specifying exactly which one.

“Three years ago I had a strange and super rare form of vasculitis, which He destroyed my vision, my hearing and my balance“, said.

“Really you don’t appreciate them (the senses) until you lose themuntil you think ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to see again, hear again, walk again. I’m lucky to be alive,'” the actor told the show.

On his Twitter account he clarified that he had this “autoimmune outbreak” three years ago: “I made a full recovery. All good. Keep going. See you at the 2022 New York Marathon.”

It means “vasculitis”. inflammation of the blood vessel wall. And it can lead to the narrowing, even the closing, of the blood vessels, which leads to a lack of irrigation in different organs,” Bruna Chu, rheumatologist and professor of Medicine at the Positivo University in Curitiba (Brazil) explained to BBC Brazil. ).

There are more than 20 types of vasculitis. The actor did not specify which variant suffered saying only that it was a rare version of the disorder and that he had severe symptoms.

Some forms of vasculitis, as explained by the rheumatologist Henrique Dalmolin, from Moriah Hospital (São Paolo, Brazil), are mild and cause symptoms that are easy to treat, such as skin lesions.

“There are others that usually cause more serious consequences, affecting the central nervous system, lungs, kidneys, eyes and hearing system. The more alterations you have, the more serious the clinical picture.”

According to the doctor, in cases of vasculitis, loss of movement is usually associated with a variation that affectsa the central or peripheral nervous systemwhere are the nerves that make the transmission to the extremities”.

Person putting eye drops in the eye of another. — Caption,

The eyes can be affected by this disease.

The different types of vasculitis and their symptoms

The different types of vasculitis are differentiated by the size and location of affected blood vessels.

“The vasculitides primaries are those in which the blood vessels are the main target of the disease. In addition, the classification is made according to how the affected vessels are: large, medium, small or variable,” says Chu.

for this guy there are no known causes.

There is also vasculitis high schoolsthose in which there is some previous health condition who is responsible for this medical picture.

“It could be another autoimmune condition, from a secondary infection, mainly viralsuch as hepatitis and even covid-19, as a result of medication and even contact with levamisole, a component of cocaine,” Dalmolin lists.

The most common symptoms are skin lesions (such as purpura, hives and rashes), fatigue, weakness, fever, joint pain, vision changes (such as pain and redness of the eyes), headache, nasal congestion and nosebleeds, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, kidney problems (dark urine), weight loss and nerve problems (such as numbness, weakness, and pain).

How vasculitis is diagnosed

The diagnosis of the different types of vasculitis is made through blood and imaging laboratory tests.

“The diagnosis is not easy. It depends on the evaluation of the symptoms, the complementary tests and, often, other diseases that have similar manifestations have to be excluded,” explains Chu.

can also be done kidney, liver, blood count tests (with antibody tests), as well as tomography and magnetic resonance imaging according to the symptoms that each patient presents.

White bottle from which white pills spill out. — Caption,

Immunosuppressive drugs are the main treatment for vasculitis.

How is the treatment

Vasculitis is, in most cases and when there is no other secondary condition behind its appearance, a chronic autoimmune diseasethat is, caused by the patient’s own organism.

The main treatment for all subtypes of vasculitis is the use of immunosuppressive drugs which include, depending on the case, corticosteroids, immunobiologicals or conventional immunosuppressants, which help control the activity of antibodies that attack blood vessels.

In Kutcher’s case, the actor said it took about a year to recover, likely due to the severity of the symptoms.

Those diagnosed with vasculitis need a follow-up for the rest of his life.

“The response to treatment is better when diagnosis is earlybefore the disease causes a narrowing or closure of the blood vessels,” says Bruna Chu.

“In some cases, the most serious and resistant, a therapy called plasmapheresis, which removes circulating antibodies from the patient’s blood. But it does not offer a cure, it is only a help for a certain period of time,” explains rheumatologist Henrique Dalmolin.