Lupus
Diagnosis
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that can affect any part of the body, including your skin, joints, and organs. Normally, your immune system fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs by creating antibodies. But if you have lupus, your body can’t tell foreign invaders from your own healthy tissue, so it creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy your healthy tissue. This—no surprise!—leads to inflammation, pain, and damage. Lupus symptoms can range from mild to severe, and include fatigue, headaches, painful or swollen joints, and a butterfly-shaped rash across the cheeks and nose. The good news is that both conventional and alternative treatments can help manage lupus. On the conventional side, options include NSAIDs, like ibuprofen and naproxen, corticosteroids, antimalarial drugs, and even chemo. And on the complementary/alternative medicine side, vitamin D, omega-3s, N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), and turmeric may lower disease activity, and cognitive behavioral therapy and other types of counseling can help people with lupus cope with having a chronic, unpredictable disease. It’s important to know that many people have lupus for a long time before they get an official diagnosis because it can be really tough to pin down definitively. The signs and symptoms of lupus vary from one person to the next (remember, lupus can affect literally any part of the body), and it can mirror other disorders, too. To make it even more complicated, there isn’t a single test that can provide a diagnosis. Instead, people often undergo a bunch of tests, including blood, urine, kidney, and liver, as well as imaging tests. Sometimes, a biopsy of your kidneys may even be necessary. We know—it sounds like a lot, in both diagnosing and managing the condition. But on your good days and especially your bad days, remember that you are not alone!
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