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Monday, July 7, 2025

The Truth About Lupus

by

Dr. Raymala Maharaj
1868 days ago
20200526

The sys­temic lu­pus ery­the­mato­sus (SLE) or Lu­pus as it is com­mon­ly called is an au­toim­mune dis­ease where the body’s im­mune sys­tem mis­tak­en­ly at­tacks healthy tis­sue. This dis­ease is a mul­ti-or­gan dis­ease which can af­fect the skin, joints, kid­neys and brain, just to name a few. Al­though the cause of lu­pus is not clear, it is be­lieved to be linked to fac­tors such as ge­net­ic, en­vi­ron­men­tal, hor­mon­al and even cer­tain med­i­cines.

It has been found to be more com­mon in women, oc­cur­ring at any age but most of­ten ap­pears be­tween the ages of 15 to 44. The eth­nic groups tend­ing to be most af­fect­ed by the dis­ease are Africans and Asians. The symp­toms of lu­pus vary from per­son to per­son, may come and go and some­times can be as non-spe­cif­ic as joint pain and swelling, mim­ic­k­ing arthri­tis. SLE fre­quent­ly af­fects the joints of the hands, wrists and knees. Oth­er symp­toms may in­clude chest pain, tired­ness, fever, gen­er­al malaise, hair loss, weight loss, mouth sores, swollen lymph nodes, brain and ner­vous sys­tem dis­or­ders, gas­troin­testi­nal is­sues and heart and lung prob­lems. How­ev­er, lu­pus is al­most pathog­no­mon­ic of a “but­ter­fly” rash which is a rash that is seen over the cheeks and bridge of the nose that gets worse in sun­light. Dis­coid lu­pus is the term used to de­scribe peo­ple who have on­ly skin symp­toms. Since symp­toms of lu­pus can be non-spe­cif­ic and var­ied, it is of ut­most im­por­tance that per­sons raise their aware­ness about this life-threat­en­ing dis­ease.

In­creased aware­ness al­lows for ear­ly di­ag­no­sis and by ex­ten­sion, im­proved treat­ment out­comes. The di­ag­no­sis of lu­pus must in­clude a thor­ough phys­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion by your doc­tor who will look for com­mon signs of the dis­ease. Af­ter the ini­tial as­sess­ment is made, spe­cif­ic in­ves­ti­ga­tions will be rec­om­mend­ed to con­firm the di­ag­no­sis of SLE. Tests re­quest­ed will be name­ly Com­plete Blood Count, Kid­ney func­tion test, Chest X-ray, Uri­n­analy­sis and some­times Kid­ney biop­sy and CT scans. Since there is no cure for lu­pus, the goal of treat­ment is to con­trol symp­toms. Each per­son with SLE will need an in­di­vid­u­al­ized treat­ment plan that will be based on the ac­tiv­i­ty of their dis­ease, the part of the body that is af­fect­ed and the sever­i­ty of the dis­ease. In re­cent years, the out­come for peo­ple with SLE has im­proved. Many peo­ple have mild symp­toms and there­fore do well. The dis­ease tends to be more ac­tive dur­ing the ear­ly years of di­ag­no­sis and in peo­ple un­der 40 years. Kid­ney fail­ure, blood clots, anaemia, in­flam­ma­tion of the heart, preg­nan­cy prob­lems, stroke and bow­el dam­age are just some of the pos­si­ble com­pli­ca­tions that may de­vel­op if lu­pus is not man­aged prop­er­ly. It is im­por­tant to rec­og­nize that the man­age­ment of lu­pus must in­volve coun­selling and sup­port as this may help with the emo­tion­al is­sues that ac­com­pa­ny the dis­ease. Lu­pus af­fects both the life of the per­son with lu­pus as well as the peo­ple liv­ing with them. A bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the ill­ness can help a per­son know what to ex­pect and it can help care­givers cope and pro­vide bet­ter sup­port.

Dr. Ray­mala Ma­haraj

M.B.B.S (U.W.I)


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