The triggers for disease relapses are unknown. While many questions have appropriately been raised about factors such as infection and stress, no definitive association between these or other possible triggers have been found to be linked with disease relapses.
If I have a relapse after achieving remission is it likely that I will have further relapses?
Not necessarily. The pattern of relapses that people will experience is very individual. Some people may experience no relapses after their vasculitis enters remission. Some people may have one relapse early on and no more, some may have multiple relapses but then have no more, and some people may have their first relapse many years after they are first diagnosed. Because of this, it is difficult to view people with relapses as having any predictable pattern for the future. It is important that people who relapse should not feel discouraged that they are always destined to relapse in the future as this may not be the case. Ongoing monitoring by careful evaluation of new symptoms, regular physician visits, laboratory tests, and possibly imaging studies, all play important roles in the follow-up of patients with vasculitis, regardless of the number and type of relapses an individual has had.
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