Lupus is a chronic diseases characterized by widespread inflammatory damage to different organs of the body leading to wide variety of presenting symptoms. Lupus is considered to be an autoimmune disease in which the immune system of a person’s body wrongly attacks the “self” cells of the body resulting to damage to different organs of the body. The most commonly affected organs include the joints, kidneys, heart, brain, blood cells, skin etc.
It often becomes difficult to detect lupus as the wide variety of presenting symptoms of lupus often mimic those of various diseases. The most characteristic and typical symptom of lupus is presence of butterfly shaped rash (shaped just like a butterfly with unfolded wings) in the facial region stretching across the cheeks.
The exact underlying cause of lupus is not known however several factors are known to precipitate the symptoms of lupus. These include having certain genetic factors, suffering from certain infections, exposure to specific drugs or in some cases even exposure to sunlight. People belonging to specific ethnic group like African, American etc are at increased risk of suffering from the attack of lupus.
Treatment options mainly include drug therapy and commonly prescribed drugs are non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (the NSAIDs), antimalarial drugs, corticosteroids and other different immunosuppressant agents etc.
Symptoms
The presenting symptoms of lupus vary from person to person and no two people suffering from lupus have the same set of symptoms. The symptoms may develop suddenly or gradually over years, may become permanent or go away after certain time (temporary), may be very serious or mild in nature etc.
In most of cases of lupus the affected person usually suffer from mild degree of symptoms during most of the day however there are episodes of exacerbation of the pre existing symptoms (known as flares) followed by improvement or complete relief of the symptoms for specific period of time.
Usually the symptoms of lupus are various depending upon the fact that the disease affects several organs of the body. Hence the commonly occurring symptoms include increased tiredness, fever, painful stiff joints characterized by restricted movement, appearance of butterfly shaped facial rash spreading across the cheeks and the nasal bridge, several skin lesions which tend to worsen or appear following exposure to sun, change of natural color of fingers and nails to blue, due to poor oxygen supply to the said body parts as there is constriction of the supplying blood vessels following exposure to cold or extreme degree of stress (known as Raynaud’s phenomenon), difficulty in breathing, pain in the chest, dryness of eyes leading redness, persistent gritty sensation in the eyes, visual problems, etc, headache, confusion, loss of memory etc.
Lupus may lead to several complications due to damage of various organs following inflammation.
Commonly affected organs include
1. The kidneys: impairment of kidney function leading kidney failure is one of the common complications associated with lupus. The common presenting symptoms of kidney failure include widespread itching sensation, pain in the chest, nausea, vomiting, swelling of legs etc.
2. The brain: common presenting symptoms indicating underlying brain involvement include headache, lightheadedness, change in the usual behavioral pattern, increased forgetfulness problem with expressing thoughts, episodes of hallucination, brain strokes leading weakness of limbs to complete paralysis of them, episodes of convulsion (seizure) etc.
3. The blood cells and the blood vessels: involvement of blood cells like involvement of the red blood cells may lead to anemia, involvement of the platelets may lead to clotting disorder, increased bleeding tendency etc. Sometimes inflammatory damage may also occur along the inner lining of the blood vessels (vasculitis) etc.
4. The lungs: inflammatory damage to lungs may lead to symptoms of chest pain during breathing or restricted functioning of the lungs leading to respiratory distress etc.
5. The heart: lupus may also lead to inflammatory damage to the heart and its lining leading pericarditis and may also lead to increased chance of heart attack, heart failure etc.