I may have a friend with lupus, but refuses to seek help. What should I do?

Hi.

I have a friend who has had a facial rash for about a year already, if not more. The signs and symptoms seem like they are lupus. He has inflammation of the joints, and the facial rash. Also lately he has been acting more depress like and recently has had feeling of light headedness.

We've constantly have told him to seek help before it gets worse. We told him to get it diagnosed at least. He has no health insurance, but we are willing to chip in for the costs. But the problem is he refuses to seek help at his own will. We have constantly pleaded for him to get help. He just shys away about it and changes the subject. He NEVER wants to talk about it. And even if we do, he just gets up and leaves.

What is the best advice that we can do to help him? Put a gun behind his back and take him to the hospital?? I really don't know...

Sorry but the best thing you can do is leave him alone. You can't force him to get help and it sounds like you and your friends have done all you can to get him to the Dr. He is probably afraid of finding out for sure, he can't handle it yet so the best thing is wait until he asks for help. Be there for him. He will go when he is ready but don't push him, let him make his own decision and just be his friend for now.

He first has to realize that he has the problem in order for him to get any treatment with it. Maybe he doesn't understand the topic of lupus. I will provide a couple of links that you can show him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_lu...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupus
http://www.lupus.org/newsite/index.html