ELI5, how come when you get an organ transplant, there’s a chance your body will reject it and your immune system will kill it. But when you get infected by a new disease, it’s difficult for your immune system to kill the disease.

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ELI5, how come when you get an organ transplant, there’s a chance your body will reject it and your immune system will kill it. But when you get infected by a new disease, it’s difficult for your immune system to kill the disease.

In: Biology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m a liver transplant recipient so I can answer this!

When transplanted the patient is put on anti rejection meds, which effectively blind the immune system so it wont ‘realize’ that the organ it recieved isnt it’s own. So whenever we get some sort of viral or bacterial infection, our immune system is still blinded and cant fight as easily.
In certain cases anti rejection meds are stopped to allow the body to fight off the infection, but that requires IVIG (immunoglobulin via IV) and raises the risk of rejection a lot, which could potentially lead to rejection bad enough that another transplant is required.
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