What is Lupus?

Lupus (its full medical name is Systematic Lupus Erythematosus) is a mysterious illness. Although various aspects of it were described as far back as the 1840s and it was recognized as a systematic disease well over a century ago, the cause is still unknown and a cure still elusive.

Like AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), lupus involves the immune system. There the similarity ends. Lupus is NOT transmissible from individual to another; in no case has contagion even been suspected. In the majority of patients it does not prove fatal. And the illness is essentially the opposite of AIDS: The body’s defenses don’t falter or flag but become hyperactive, fiercely assaulting an individual’s own tissues as if those tissues were offending intruders, foreign agents that must be destroyed or expelled. Its is as if one gas developed immunity to oneself, and lupus is classed as an autoimmune disease (the prefix “auto” means “self”).

Some other autoimmune conditions involve a single organ or system. In lupus, the targeted tissues may be any from the skin to the joints to vital organs, and evidence of lupus activity may range from a bothersome rash to a critical kidney dysfunction. Lupus is a battle of the body against itself.

There is no cure, nothing that will vanquish the disease. Although there may be periods of remission when little or no treatment is necessary, lupus is chronic, a lifelong presence. But there are many effective ways of dealing with its manifestations, both minor annoyances and its major complications.

At least eight out of nine lupus sufferers are women, most of them young at the time the disease strikes.

Lupus is a frustrating experience. Your physician cannot explain its cause, predict its course, or promise a cure. This bafflemen, this inability of medicine to clarify the nature and outcome of lupus, has led, as many medical mysteries do, to speculation, to theories, to a continuing search for solutions. It has also led, at times, to the spreading of outrageous misinformation.

Lupus can be difficult to diagnose, especially for an inexperience or uninformed physician. Lupus is not often fatal, many examinations of survival rates in lupus patients have been proven over the years. Lupus is not a “degeneration of the nerves”; nor does it “run in families” (not at least, in the sense of being directly inherited).

Many misinformation about the illness can sometimes be depressing and frustrating, its an illness that doesn’t need further discouragement, particularly those based on falsehood. Indeed, despite the fact that lupus can be neither surely prevented nor surely cured, there is much that can be done by regular coordination with the doctor and the patient, to control the disease, prevent complications, and ease the impact of lupus.

Most lupus patients never face a major crisis; they simply cope, day to day, with what seems at times to be a succession of minor crisis. Some of that coping can be aided by a physician, who can prescribe and suggest ways to ease discomfort and deal with the disease’s vexingly unforeseeable course.

There are now new insights into lupus and its physical and emotional impact. This blog aims to share insights about my experience as a lupus sufferer. I hope that if you have lupus, or someone you love has lupus, you’ll gain new understanding of the condition, and how to dance with lupus, with grace.

REF: Living With Lupus by Sheldon Pail Blau, M.D.

Watch out for more info, very soon!