Your joints and muscles can hurt in varying degrees from mild to severe. You can become fatigued very easily and there may be periods of time when you are fatigued from morning to night without doing much of anything. The disease has "flares" in which your immune system is more actively attacking your bodies own cells and tissues and during this time you may feel more pain and fatigue than during times when your disease is in "remission." Normally you are somewhere between these two extremes with a little bit of discomfort sometimes. The disease affects every single person differently since there are so many variable symptoms and degrees to which the symptoms affect each individual.
The lupus foundation of America. http://donate.lupus.org/site/PageServer
== == Lupus symptoms tend to mimic many other diseases. Many times, the doctors look for many other things before looking for lupus. The phrase "But you don't look sick" is often associated with lupus. You tend to feel awful with this disease but look "normal." This can cause many patients who are misdiagnosed to feel like they are going crazy. Also, there is no single test to diagnose for lupus. A positive ANA in a blood test will sometimes show that one has lupus but it is not definitive.
Lupus anticoagulant is one a several blood clotting disorders that can affect lupus patients. Lupus anticoagulant causes the patient to make blood clots. It is treated with blood thinners.
Lupus anticoagulant does not, in itself cause tiredness but having lupus does. Lupus can cause anemia which in turn causes fatigue. Lupus can cause the body to make inflammatory cytokines which cause a feeling of flu like fatigue.
Lupus is an autoimmune disorder. Tuberculosis is an infection. People with lupus often take immunosuppressive medications that may make them more vulnerable to tuberculosis, but the two are not related.
In the United States lupus affects about 1.5 million people. Worldwide it is estimated that at least 5 million people have lupus. These are estimates. Doctors do not report each diagnosis of lupus that they make. No government agency requires that a diagnosis of lupus be reported. Lupus statistics are gleand from hospital discharge diagnoses. If a person is diagnosed with lupus but had not been hospitalized, their diagnosis will not appear in the statistics. If a person is hospitalized for a complicaton of lupus, the discharge statement may not even mention lupus.
Scientists do not know why lupus is so predominant in women, but certainly, hormonal and genetic differences make a contribution.
Researchers are still discovering genetic issues in lupus. You may be born with the genetic make up that predisposes you to develop lupus later in life. But lupus may or may not develop. In cases of genetically identical twins, both develop lupus in only about 30% of the cases. A baby born to a mother who has lupus might have neonatal lupus which usually clears on its own in six months or so. In some cases the infant might have congenital heart block, but not necessarily lupus.
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Although it is most commonly diagnosed in women of child-bearing age, lupus can affect anyone of any gender or any age. It is possible for your 12 year old son to have lupus. If you think your son might have lupus you should make an appointment to have him seen by a doctor.
Lupus is not caused by a pathogen. Lupus is not contagious.
Not necessarily, but many lupus patients will gain weight due to an anti-inflammatory drug that they often take called Prednisone. This causes excessive weight gain. Sometimes lupus effects the digestive organs, resulting in digestive issues that cause weight loss. Often medications and other symptoms of lupus cause the patient to feel nauseous and vomit a lot, which is also another cause of weight loss due to lupus.