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Understanding Lupus
If you or a family member has been diagnosed with or are being evaluated for possible lupus, you will want to know as much as you can about the disease.
What is Lupus
Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). In lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system, which is the part of the body that fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs ("foreign invaders," like the flu). Normally our immune system produces proteins called antibodies that protect the body from these invaders. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues ("auto" means "self") and creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue. These autoantibodies cause inflammation, pain, and damage in various parts of the body.
• Lupus is also a disease of flares (the symptoms worsen and you feel ill) and remissions (the symptoms improve and you feel better). Lupus can range from mild to life-threatening and should always be treated by a doctor. With good medical care, most people with lupus can lead a full life.
• Lupus is not contagious, not even through sexual contact. You cannot "catch" lupus from someone or "give" lupus to someone.
• Lupus is not like or related to cancer. Cancer is a condition of malignant, abnormal tissues that grow rapidly and spread into surrounding tissues. Lupus is an autoimmune disease, as described above.
• Lupus is not like or related to HIV (Human Immune Deficiency Virus) or AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). In HIV or AIDS the immune system is underactive; in lupus, the immune system is overactive.
• It is believed that 5 million people throughout the world have a form of lupus.
• Lupus strikes mostly women of childbearing age (15-44). However, men, children, and teenagers develop lupus, too.
• Women of color are 2-3 times more likely to develop lupus; people of all races and ethnic groups can develop lupus.
What Causes Lupus
Genes
No gene or group of genes has been proven to cause lupus. Lupus does, however, appear in certain families, and when one of two identical twins has lupus, there is an increased chance that the other twin will also develop the disease. These findings, as well as others, strongly suggest that genes are involved in the development of lupus.
Environment
While a person’s genes may increase the chance that he or she will develop lupus, it takes some kind of environmental trigger to set off the illness or to bring on a flare. Examples include:
• ultraviolet rays from the sun; ultraviolet rays from fluorescent light bulbs;
• sulfa drugs, which make a person more sensitive to the sun; diuretics; sun-sensitizing tetracycline drugs such as minocycline; penicillin or other antibiotic drugs; an infection ; a cold or a viral illness; exhaustion; an injury; emotional stress, such as a divorce, illness, death in the family, or other life complications; anything that causes stress to the body, such as surgery, physical harm, pregnancy, or giving birth.
Although many seemingly unrelated factors can trigger the onset of lupus in a susceptible person, scientists have noted some common features among many people who have lupus, including: exposure to the sun; an infection; being pregnant; giving birth; a drug taken to treat an illness
Hormones
Hormones are the body’s messengers and they regulate many of the body’s functions. In
particular, the sex hormone estrogen plays a role in lupus. Men and women both produce
estrogen, but estrogen production is much greater in females. Many women have more lupus
symptoms before menstrual periods and/or during pregnancy, when estrogen production is high.
This may indicate that estrogen somehow regulates the severity of lupus. However, it does not
mean that estrogen, or any other hormone for that matter, causes lupus.
What are the Symptoms of Lupus
Because lupus can affect so many different organs, a wide range of symptoms can occur. These symptoms may come and go, and different symptoms may appear at different times during the course of the disease. The most common symptoms of lupus, which are the same for females and males, are:
• extreme fatigue (tiredness); headaches; painful or swollen joints; fever; anemia (low numbers of red blood cells or hemoglobin, or low total blood volume); swelling (edema) in feet, legs, hands, and/or around eyes ; pain in chest on deep breathing (pleurisy); butterfly-shaped rash across cheeks and nose ; sun- or light-sensitivity (photosensitivity)
• hair loss; abnormal blood clotting; fingers turning white and/or blue when cold (Raynaud’s phenomenon); mouth or nose ulcers.
Many of these symptoms occur in other illnesses besides lupus. In fact, lupus is sometimes called "the great imitator" because its symptoms are often like the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, blood disorders, fibromyalgia, diabetes, thyroid problems, Lyme disease, and a number of heart, lung, muscle, and bone diseases.
(Taken and adapted from the website http://www.lupus.org)
We all know that in English the prefix un is a negative one.
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