You can have CJD for over 50 years without knowing it.
CJD also known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease can remain dormant in it's incubation phase for over 50 years before any symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD appear.
Although the exact duration of time that someone may have CJD or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease without knowing it will also depend heavily on the type of exposure and the specific strain of the disease.
Variant CJD (vCJD), acquired from contaminated meat, has an incubation period that often averages around 10 years to 15 years, although scientific estimates also suggest it can even stretch to 50 years to 56 years in some people.
Iatrogenic CJD, which is acquired via medical procedures like from contaminated surgical instruments or historical growth hormone treatments, the dormancy has been documented to range from as little as a few years to over 38 years to 50 years.
And for sporadic CJD, which is the most common form of CJD or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, has no known external exposure or long term dormant incubation phase and it arises spontaneously when normal proteins misfold into prions.
The way the CJD or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease progresses is once the dormant prions trigger active brain cell damage and clinical symptoms manifest, the progression is then rapid.
Classic CJD or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is often fatal within 4 months to 5 months of symptom onset.
And variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD progresses slightly slow, with an average survival time of 13 to 14 months.
The odds of getting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are extremely low, affecting about 1 to 2 people per million worldwide each year.
Risk and Statistics of CJD include:
Annual Odds: In the United States, this incidence rate equals roughly 350 to 500 new cases per year.
General Risk: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your overall lifetime chance of developing the condition is roughly one in a million.
How CJD Develops:
Sporadic (85% of cases): Most people get Sporadic CJD for no known reason, typically when a normal brain protein spontaneously misfolds into a prion.
Hereditary (5% to 15% of cases): People inherit a genetic mutation in the prion protein gene from a family member.
Acquired (Less than 1% of cases): Transmission happens through exposure to infected brain or nervous system tissue during rare medical procedures, or via variant CJD from eating contaminated beef.