Lupus

Arthritis as well as chondromalacia.

There is no cure for discoid lupus, only management. Management may consist of antimalarials, immunosuppressive medications, oral steroids, topical steroids, and injections. Self-management includes avoiding UVA and UVB light (sun and fluorescent lights), stress reduction, and overall attention to healthy habits.

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I found one study that said 30 years younger than the average national age of death. That didn't help much so I kept searching, finding this: Go to http://diglib.tums.ac.ir/pub/magmng/pdf/1041.pdf This one says the average age at death is 26. 30 years ago, lupus was considered a death sentence and patients were not expected to survive longer than 5 years after diagnosis. Today, the majority of lupus patients can expect to live a relatively normal life span provided they follow their treatment plan and adopt a healthy lifestyle. (I am 57 and have SLE with major organ involvement and I am sitting here writing.) There are no solid mortality statistics on lupus. The reason for this is that lupus is very rarely listed as the direcct cause of death. 40% of lupus patients will develop lupus nephitis which can kill. The cause of death is listed as kidney failure not lupus. Lupus patients are twice as likely to develop atheroscleroisis or hardening of the arteries and to suffer cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks. The cause of death is listed as stroke or heart attack and not lupus. Lupus patients have great difficulty battling infection because of a confused immune system and the immunosuppressive medications they take to manage the disease. If a lupus patient dies of pneumonia, that is listed as the cause of death and not lupus. In addition, the medications taken to manage lupus have side effects that can lead to complications which lead to death. I have lupus and work with lupus patients on a daily basis. From personal experience with many, many patients I can say that the average age of death is most certainly not 26!

Yes. Autoimmune activity in lupus causes inflammation. Inflammation causes pain. 90-95% of lupus patients experience joint pain. Other pain may be present depending on which body systems and organs are involved.

Yes, a person can have chronic pleurisy without lupus.

No because lupus is not contagious. Lupus is not transmitted by blood, air or any bodily fluids. Lupus develops when a person with a genetic predisposition is exposed to the right set of triggers.

If a person is positive for hepatitis B that has nothing to do with lupus one way or the other. The two are not related.

Yes, most autoimmune diseases including lupus, affect your athletic energy and abilities.

Ten Years?

Nothing

Absolutely. Lupus is an auto-Immune disease that , most commonly, affects the kidneys by deteriorating their function.

most systemic lupus patients eventually die from infections or from heart disease complicated by long-term use of corticosteroids

You take her back to the doctor who diagnosed the thrombocytopenia and get treatment for her. Thrombocytopenia is low platelet count. In extreme cases she might need a transfusion of platelets. She might also need medication such as prednisone. The condition will not go away on its own, and she is at risk of bleeding internally. Platelets are the component of blood that is repsponsible for clotting.

Prognosis for the individual patient depends on the severity of the disease process. Lupus can be fully compatible with a normal lifespan, or can result in fatal organ failure,

UV rays cause destruction of cells which may trigger a flare of increased antibodies against those destroyed cells. This often results in a flare of disease activity and symptoms. Lupus patients are warned to stay out of the sun and other UV light sources to minimize flares.

is the ridges you feel like blisters?

Nephritis occurs in about 40-50% of systemic lupus erythematosus patients. If a person does not have lupus in the first place, then they will not develop lupus nephritis. Lupus itself is not directly hereditary. People inherit just the right combination of genes to presdispose them to developing lupus, but something has to trigger the autoimmune reaction. In studies of genetically identical twins lupus develops in both twins only 30% of the time, thereby demonstrating that lupus is not totally inherited.

Some people with lupus also have problems with their blood clotting too quickly. These people have antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, lupus anticoagulant or anticardiolipin. The condition is managed with blood thinner like coumadin or wafarin and must be carefully monitored. Without treatment, the patient is very likely to suffer cardiovascular events such a strokes, TIA's and heart attacks.

Lupus affects people of color (African Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and Latinas) about 2-4 times more frequently than Caucasians.

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.

Breathlessness and chest tightness are common signs of asthma, though it doesn't definitely mean you have asthma. If your blood relatives have a history of asthma, you should see the doctor, who will find out if it is asthma or simply common cold.

The constellation lupus appears in the southern sky. You can see it at night.