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Lupus Awareness Month

 

 

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Article by Contributing Author

Systemic lupus erythematosus, often abbreviated as SLE and widely known as lupus, is a systemic autoimmune disease that can affect any part of the body. At this moment there is no cure for lupus and no way of preventing it. The only action against lupus is to provide early diagnosis and intensive treatment.

Like with any other rare disease that circumvent our current medical understanding there is a strong need of support from the general public. If we are not among those less fortunate that need to face this problem day by day it doesn’t mean we can close our eyes and walk on. All of us share the responsibility of giving the smallest form of support, at least by getting informed about the subject.

The Lupus Foundation of America has declared May – Lupus Awareness Month. You can provide help to the cause by joining local groups, attending events, making donations and most important, by spreading the word. With the help of today’s social media, ideas travel faster from one to another and any initiative builds up with the potential to go world-wide.

Wear and display Lupus Awareness Month products to show your support and let others know it is Lupus Awareness Month. Purple is on every coat of arms for the fight against lupus, while the butterfly symbol resembles one of the disease’s emblematic symptoms.

For healthy people, the immune system acts as a firewall against viruses, bacteria, and germs. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues. As occurs in other autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks the body’s cells and tissue, resulting in inflammation and damage. The parts of the body most often affected are the heart, joints, skin, lungs, blood vessels, liver, kidneys, and nervous system.

Lupus is not contagious, not even through sexual contact. You cannot “catch” lupus from someone or “give” lupus to someone else. Lupus is not related to cancer or HIV and doesn’t share resemblance with these two conditions. What you’ve just read is the first essential information that the public should receive in order to avoid creating a false perception over lupus and those who are affected by it.

Lupus affects ordinary people as well as celebrities. Lady Gaga has been tested borderline positive for SLE, however she claims not to be affected by the symptoms yet. The singer addressed the matter in an interview with Larry King saying she hopes to avoid symptoms by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Another singer, Toni Braxton first discovered her lupus diagnosis after developing pericarditis, inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart. Women of color are two to three times more likely than white women to develop lupus, says Dawn Isherwood, a health educator with the Lupus Foundation of America. Another example of a star being affected by lupus is Seal. The scars on the singer’s face are the result of discoid lupus erythematosus, a type of lupus involving only the skin. Discoid lupus typically causes sores on the face and scalp but can affect the skin anywhere on the body. It can also cause hair loss. People with discoid lupus are often sensitive to ultraviolet light, and need to be careful about sun exposure. Ten percent of people with discoid lupus will go on to develop systemic lupus.

The rate of SLE varies considerably between countries, ethnicity, gender, and changes over time. SLE occurs more frequently and with greater severity among those of non-European descent. SLE, like many autoimmune diseases, affects females more frequently than males, at a rate of almost 9 to 1. It is estimated that at least 1.5 million Americans and 5 million people throughout the world have a form of lupus.

Like any chronic disease, lupus affects the quality of life. Certain changes in lifestyle are required for those that find themselves trapped inside this condition. Lupus is also a disease that fluctuates in time on a large scale, from intervals when the symptoms worsen and you feel ill to periods of remission, when the symptoms improve and you feel better. There is also a delicate mental approach towards seeing your own body turned against it and sharing the stigma with only a few. A patient will need, beside his treatment, a huge support from his family, friends and coworkers in order to live a life close to what we call “normal”.

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