If you often have oral ulcers, beware of Behcet's disease!

Oral ulcers are a common oral disease in life and usually disappear on their own, so many people ignore them. In fact, this practice is wrong. Although oral ulcers are not very serious diseases, they may be a sign of Behcet's disease.

1. Oral ulcer + genital ulcer

The most common symptoms of Behçet's disease are oral and vulvar ulcers. Vulvar ulcers include genital ulcers and ulcers around the anus. If a male genital ulcer occurs on the glans penis, the symptoms will be more obvious, while the symptoms of scrotal ulcers are milder. Female genital ulcers can occur on the labia majora and minora or on the vaginal wall. The symptoms vary in severity, and some may even have no symptoms and can only be detected through a gynecological examination. Clinically, many genital ulcers caused by Behcet's disease are often misdiagnosed as sexually transmitted diseases and cannot be cured even after long-term treatment. If these patients also have frequent oral ulcers, it is likely that they have Behcet's disease rather than a sexually transmitted disease.

2. Oral ulcers + eye problems

Behcet's disease often affects the eyes. In the early years, people called Behcet's disease "eye, mouth, and genital syndrome." The main clinical symptoms are red and painful eyes, decreased vision, photophobia and tearing, foreign body sensation, floaters and headache, etc. It usually manifests as a chronic, recurrent and progressive course, with a blindness rate of up to 25%. If you have an eye disease that does not heal after long-term treatment or recurs repeatedly, and you also have frequent oral ulcers (more than 3 times a year), you need to be alert to Behcet's disease and are advised to consult a rheumatology and immunology department.

3. Oral ulcers + skin problems

Behcet's disease may also manifest on the skin, such as severe acne, erythema nodosum, difficult wound healing, and needle prick reactions. If you have a lot of acne, and most of them are red, swollen and pustules that last for a long time and are accompanied by frequent oral ulcers, you should be highly alert to Behcet's disease. Erythema nodosum often occurs on the lower limbs, but can also appear in other parts of the body. If erythema nodosum is accompanied by frequent oral ulcers, beware of Behcet's disease. Even if there is no oral ulcer, you should also pay attention to other rheumatological and immunological diseases.

4. Oral ulcers + joint pain

Some patients with Behcet's disease have mild oral ulcers, which only occur 3 to 5 times a year and are not a reason to seek medical treatment. However, joint pain is more troublesome to the patients' lives. If you have joint pain and frequent oral ulcers, be alert to Behcet's disease.

5. Oral ulcers + vascular problems

Behcet's disease itself is a type of vasculitis, and its oral ulcers are caused by inflammation of the small blood vessels under the oral mucosa. Although most patients only have damage to the mucosa, some patients also develop vasculitis in other parts of the body. The vascular diseases of Behcet's disease are mainly arteritis and phlebitis, which can lead to arterial stenosis and infarction, aneurysm, venous thrombosis, etc.

6. Oral ulcers + heart valve disease

Most cases of valvular heart disease are caused by rheumatic fever, a streptococcal throat infection, during childhood and adolescence, and are called "rheumatic heart disease." However, since Behcet's disease is prone to sterile abscesses and wounds are difficult to heal, it is often the case that the "surgery is very successful", but the artificial valve is unstable or falls off within a few months after the operation, leading to the patient's death.

7. Oral ulcer + chronic pulmonary embolism

Another characteristic of Behcet's disease is that it is prone to thrombosis. The thrombosis in the venous system and the detachment of thrombosis in the right side of the heart can lead to pulmonary embolism. Chronic pulmonary embolism caused by Behcet's disease is often difficult to treat with anticoagulation and thrombolysis according to the conventional treatment methods for chronic pulmonary embolism. Anti-inflammatory and immunotherapy must be carried out simultaneously to be effective.