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Systemic lupus erythematosus is one of those ominous sounding medical conditions with an impenetrable name. It’s a lot of syllables and few of them give you any useful information about what the condition actually is. But luckily, understanding systemic lupus erythematosus isn’t that complicated and it’s much simpler than it sounds.
So what exactly is systemic lupus erythematosus? What are the symptoms? And how is it treated?
What Is Systemic Lupus Erythematosus?
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus sounds really complicated, but it might help you understand the condition better to learn that most of the time people just call it “lupus.” That’s right, systemic lupus erythematosus is actually just the long, technical name for lupus.
So what exactly is lupus?
Put simply lupus is a disorder of the body’s immune system. In a healthy immune system, your body produces antibodies that identify and destroy foreign cells like bacteria and viruses. These antibodies attach to the foreign cells and kill them and in the process, they learn to recognize these cells more quickly in the future.
This is why people are able to develop immunities to certain illnesses after being exposed to them. The body’s immune system becomes conditioned to identify these foreign cells quickly and destroy them immediately before they can infect the body.
But in someone with lupus, these antibodies are conditioned to attack the body’s own cells rather than foreign cells. As a result, they begin destroying the tissue of the body. This makes lupus an autoimmune condition- a disease where the immune system turns against the body.
In systemic lupus erythematosus, your vital organs can begin to shut down under the progressive damage caused by your own body’s immune system. In severe cases of lupus, this leads to death. But lupus can also cause less serious, but still debilitating symptoms.
What Are The Symptoms?
The symptoms of systemic lupus erythematosus are often quite diverse. Systemic lupus erythematosus affects tissue all over the body, and as a result, patients can experience symptoms nearly everywhere.
One of the most visible symptoms of lupus, and perhaps the one that people think of first, is inflammation of the skin. This inflammation often results in a distinctive rash across the face (sometimes called a butterfly rash). While often this skin damage is limited to minor redness, occasionally lupus can cause truly disfiguring damage to the skin.
Lupus also produces symptoms like chronic fatigue and muscle pain, which can make it difficult to distinguish from conditions like fibromyalgia. Often the joints are painful and can get swollen due to inflammation. Lupus also damages vital organs like the heart and kidneys and unexplained kidney or heart damage can be a sign of lupus.
How Is It Treated?
Doctors usually treat systemic lupus erythematosus by focusing on the inflammation that the condition causes. So the most commonly prescribed drugs for treating lupus are anti-inflammatory drugs, which are a class of drugs that, obviously, reduce inflammation.
And in fact, one of the drugs that are often used to treat lupus is something you can get over the counter at almost any drugstore. Aspirin, in addition to being one of the most familiar painkillers, is actually a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (or NSAID). That makes it useful for treating a lot of the symptoms of lupus. And this is also true for other NSAIDs like Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen.
In addition, for more serious cases of lupus-caused inflammation, doctors can prescribe a corticosteroid. Corticosteroids are a class of hormones that are usually produced in the body naturally, but can also be injected for medical purposes. When injected, corticosteroids help to control and reduce inflammation, which makes them useful for treating lupus.
And in other cases of lupus, doctors sometimes need to prescribe an immunosuppressant drug. Immunosuppressants reduce the activity of the immune system. And obviously, with systemic lupus erythematosus, which is a condition that causes an overactive immune system, that can be a very effective treatment.
And the good news is with that these forms of treatment, systemic lupus erythematosus is far from a death sentence. In fact, 80-90% of people with lupus will not have their lifespan significantly shortened by the condition. With proper treatment, it’s perfectly possible to live a long life with lupus. Of course, even with treatment, the symptoms of lupus can reduce your quality of life.
And there is currently no cure for lupus, which means it’s important to continue supporting research that will help people with the condition.
So tell us, do you have lupus? How do you manage it? Let us know in the comments.
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