Muscle inflammations come in a variety of diseases that are classified under the term myositis. Myositis is a debilitation and harrowing autoimmune disease that can affect the muscle by causing calcification of the muscles and the skin and nervous system as well. Being an autoimmune disorder, the only way to treat this illness is by the use of corticosteroids and immunosuppressant drugs.
An autoimmune disorder is a disorder where the immune system fails to distinguish between good and bad parts of the body. This is a simplistic description of the disease and to elucidate, autoimmunity causes the immune system to attack the parts of the body where there is no problem. A normally functioning immune system will only mount an autoimmune response on its own tissues in the cases of tumors or mutation during cell division; thereby, keeping cancers at bay. However, a disorder can cause the body to turn on itself, as is the case in myositis. Many types of myositis like dermatomyositis and polymyositis manifest their symptoms by a wide range of symptoms including calcification of muscle, skin rashes that are purple, and atrophy of the muscles. Other odd but connected symptoms include dysphagia, tenderness of the muscles, fatigue, intestinal ulcers, and even problems in the lungs. Polymyositis has roughly the same number of symptoms but casts its area of affecting more parts of the body like the hips. The only myositis that is not caused by an autoimmune response is pyomyositis, which is caused by bacteria from the staphylococcus group, and begins with trauma to the muscle.
The treatment of myositis is done by the use of corticosteroids. When treating inflammations, two types of anti-inflammatory drugs are used: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and steroid based drugs. Corticosteroids are much more potent and required for reduction of the inflammation. After a certain point in the treatment, however, corticosteroids might stop working and in situations like this, immunosuppressant drugs have to be employed to combat the illness. Immunosuppressant therapy is also gaining ground in taming an immune system that has gone bad. Other methods of treatment that follow include physiotherapy for muscular atrophy. Home remedies are rarely of any use when dealing with such a debilitating illness that requires the complete suppression of the immune system. This is a disease that one has to live with and since the treatment itself could cause an entire host of problems to arise and other infections to take root, requires a lot of counseling to come to terms with the disease.