Lupus

Can someone "catch" lupus from a person who has it?

Absolutely NOT - you can NOT "catch" lupus from someone else.

Here's why:

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory automimmune disease that results most likely from being born with one or more specific genetic traits that make a person susceptible to developing SLE.

And even then, this alone is not enough to produce active lupus.

Dr. Daniel Wallace, a world-renowned expert in SLE who practices in California has remarked that what surprises him is not the number of people are diagnosed with SLE, but rather the large number of people who carry the genes which can lead to active lupus who never develop the disease.

So in addition to being born with the specific multi-gene predisposition for SLE, current evidence suggests that some sort of trigger is required to set the disease process in motion.

Exactly what this trigger might be is not known - it may be one or more drugs or chemicals, or a combination of these, it may be viral infection, or some other agent that causes these genes to become active & SLE to emerge.

Developing SLE is so much more complicated than simply "catching" an illness like a cold. Here's what is takes to even consider a diagnosis of lupus:

A diagnosis of SLE requires the identification of at least 11 positive signs/symptoms from a list of possible criteria that represent active SLE.

This is not a simple diagnosis to make,

and the sad fact is that occasionally patients who have developed lupus for the first time will be misdiagnosed by their physician, who may not recognize a constellation of different symptoms as all arising from this one, highly variable, chronic illness.

To complicate matters further, one of the hallmarks of SLE is the fact that the course of this disease is unpredictable for each person who has it:

For some, SLE will declare itself with one "flare" (when the disease is active) followed by a permanent remission, where they are never troubled by SLE again.

Often SLE develops, then cycles between periods when the disease is active (flares) and intervals of complete disease remission, during which no clinical signs of lupus exist.

And for some, unfortunately, SLE can remain permanently active.

You should also know that, for those with active SLE, the signs and symptoms of this disease are also highly variable.

Not only can this chronic disease vary drastically from one person to the next, from life-threatening (sadly, lupus is sometimes fatal) to only a minor annoyance; but it can also behave unpredictably within the same person.

For someone who has lived with active but relatively stable SLE for a relatively long period of time, there may be some evidence to suggest that the course of their illness will, in general, continue along to some extent as it has in the past. But there is always the possibility that the illness will suddenly change.

There simply is no one, fool-proof test that can say definitively whether or not a person has SLE or not. Doctors use a variety of different tests to monitor disease activity, as well as to investigate the possibility of SLE, but these tests are only useful when combined with other information and reviewed by an expert who knows how to interpret these tests relative to lupus. No one test, not even double-stranded DNA, is a perfect, independent method for determining a definitive diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus.

Here are some of the known facts about SLE:

It is diagnosed 10 times more often in women than in men;

the onset of SLE, or when it's first diagnosed, is usually between the teenage years to middle age (coinciding approximately with a woman's child-bearing years) - which is why, in theory, estrogen may play a role in SLE;

Lupus develops in those who have the genetic predisposition for it, but the chance of the daughter of a woman with SLE inheriting this disease is only about 5% (which is close to what any random person in the population's chance of developing SLE are), which tells us that SLE results from a combination of a number of genes, not just one.

So, I hope I have convinced you:

There is absolutely no way one person to transmit lupus to another.

* Achy, swollen joints * Persistent fever over 100 degrees * Prolonged, extreme fatigue * Skin rashes * Pain in the chest on deep breathing * Anemia * Excessive protein in the urine * Sensitivity to sunlight * Hair loss * Abnormal clotting problems * Fingers turning white or blue in the cold * Seizures * Mouth or nose ulcers lasting more than two weeks Most people with lupus do not experience all of these symptoms ever or at one time.
The immune system is designed to attack foreign substances in the body. If you have lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system and it attacks healthy cells and tissues. This can damage many parts of the body such as the:

• Joints
• Skin
• Kidneys
• Heart
• Lungs
• Blood vessels
• Brain.