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| *Women health>>>Lupus |
My dad has been diagnosed with lupus any idea what it is? |
any answers would be helpful his consultant spoke in medical jargon and we still in the dark I know how intimidating it can be when a Health Professional tries to explain what you have, so I will try to explain this as easy as possible for you: Lupus is an "autoimmune disease". Your father's immune system is like an army with hundreds of soldiers. The immune system鈥檚 job is to fight foreign substances in the body, like germs and viruses. But in autoimmune diseases, the immune system is out of control. It attacks healthy tissues, not germs. You can鈥檛 catch lupus from another person. It isn鈥檛 cancer, and it isn鈥檛 related to AIDS. Lupus is a disease that can affect many parts of the body. Everyone reacts differently. One person with lupus may have swollen knees and fever. Another person may be tired all the time or have kidney trouble. Someone else may have rashes. Lupus can involve the joints, the skin, the kidneys, the lungs, the heart and/or the brain. If you have lupus, it may affect two or three parts of your body. Usually, one person doesn鈥檛 have all the possible symptoms. When your father's symptoms appear, he is having what is called a 鈥渇lare.鈥?These signs may come and go. He may have swelling and rashes one week and no symptoms at all the next. He may find that his symptoms flare after he's been out in the sun or after a hard day at work. Even if he takes medicine for lupus, he may find that there are times when the symptoms become worse. Having your father learn to recognize that a flare is coming can help him take steps to cope with it. He may feel very tired or have pain, a rash, a fever, stomach discomfort, headache, or dizziness just before a flare. Steps to prevent flares, such as limiting the time he spends in the sun and getting enough rest and quiet, can also be helpful for him. Dealing with a long-lasting disease like lupus can be hard on your father's emotions. He might think that his friends, family, and coworkers do not understand how he feels. Sadness and anger are common reactions. People with lupus have limited energy and must manage it wisely. Your father should ask his Doctor and Rheumatologist about ways to cope with fatigue. Most people feel better if they manage their rest and work and take their medicine. If you find that your father starts feeling depressed, medicine and counseling can help him. As a daughter, try your hardest to support him and help him, especially on days when he has a flare-up and may find it more difficult to move around or do basic tasks. Give him as much love and understanding as you possibly can -- and I already know you are a wonderful daughter for reaching out and trying to understand this disease as much as possible. Best of luck to both of you and I hope things get better. I think lupus is where the body is allergic to itself, but I may be wrong. I watched it on the show "House", but I can't quite remember if it was that or another illness. it's a chronic illness where the body attacks itself. http://www.arthritis.org/conditions/dise... It's a disease that causes pain, much like arthritis, but more. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE or lupus) is a chronic, potentially debilitating or fatal autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body鈥檚 cells and tissue, resulting in inflammation and tissue damage. SLE can affect any part of the body, but most often harms the kidneys (lupus nephritis), heart, joints (rheumatological), skin, lungs, blood vessels and brain/nervous system. Lupus is treatable, mainly with immunosuppression, though there is currently no cure for it. The standard treatment, for decades, has been a limited group of drugs (primarily corticosteroids and chemotherapy drugs). Research into more modern treatments has recently begun and is accelerated by genetic discoveries, especially mapping of the human genome. SLE is known as "the great imitator", as its symptoms often mimic other illnesses and because they come and go unpredictably. Diagnosis can be elusive, with patients sometimes suffering unexplained symptoms and untreated SLE for years. Increased awareness and education about lupus since the 1960s has helped many more patients get an accurate diagnosis and made it possible to estimate the number of people with lupus. Lupus was previously believed to be a rare disease. In the United States alone, an estimated 270,000 to 1.5 million people have lupus, making it more common than cystic fibrosis or cerebral palsy. World-wide, a conservative estimate states that over 5 million people have lupus. SLE was called lupus (Latin for "wolf"), perhaps due to a crude similarity between the facial rash that some lupus patients develop, and a wolf's face, although various explanations have been proposed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lupus_eryth... this is where you can go to find out more information,sounds pretty serious, i wish you and your father luck with this!! Common initial and chronic complaints are fever, malaise, joint pains, myalgias and fatigue. Because they are so often seen with other diseases, these signs and symptoms are not part of the diagnostic criteria for SLE. When occurring in conjunction with other signs and symptoms, however, they are considered suggestive. Lupus ia a term originally used to depict erosion of the skin, now it is used with modifying terms designating various diseases: lupus anticoagulant, lupus band test, lupus erythematosus, lupus erythematosus cell, lupus erythematosus cell test, lupus erythematosus profundus, lupus livedo, lupus miliaris disseminatus faciei, lupus nephritis, lupus pernio and lupus vulgaris |
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