The disease is called Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Lupus for short. There
are many different types of Lupus’s symptoms, and different people have
different symptoms. Lupus may outbreak rapidly like acute diseases, on condition
that can’t find the cause of disease, the patients may have suffered the disease
for many years. Besides, Primary Disease--Lupus, it is also related to the
symptom caused by late-stage Lupus. The various secondary lesion caused by Lupus
become the import factor that make the patient’s condition worse or even die. It
is found that about 90% Lupus patients are accompanied with kidney damage by
renal biopsy.
Realize the cause of Lupus and Lupus’s symptoms have the positive effects for
the patient’s treatment and early prevention, so let the patient go through the
life with a normal lifestyle.
The first symptom of Lupus-----------skin
Almost all kinds of skin rash may happen. “Allergy” is very common symptom.
In fact, the Lupus patient may have allergic history to penicillin and other
drugs before they have been diagnosed Lupus.
About half of the patients, their cheeks appear the pink rash, and a
"typical" butterfly-pink rash can be seen in few patients’ faces. Inflammation
of small blood vessels in the skin may cause various types of rashes. The most
common is Pink Speckled Rash around the elbows, fingers and toes.
Patients with lupus may occur Raynaud's Phenomenon, in cold situation, the
fingers will become pale then turn livid. This phenomenon may be appeared a few
years ago before the patients are diagnosed lupus. This phenomenon is not
peculiar to Lupus, other healthy individuals may also appear this
phenomenon.
The second symptom of Lupus----- Lupus Erythematosus
In the past, many different diseases called Lupus that resulted in confusion.
In current practice, this term only used to describe two related types of
disease. The name of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus derived from it can damage the
internal organs, and usually cause slight rash and Erythema in the face. On the
other hand, Discoid Lupus Erythematosus usually cause obvious rash and leave
scars in the face, even lead to severe hair loss and leave scars on the scalp.
Although Discoid Lupus Erythematosus cause the serious rash, it only causes the
slight internal organs disease or dosen’t cause any diseases. (It is generally
considered that about 5% of patients with Discoid Lupus Erythematosus will
develop into Systemic Lupus Erythematosus in a certain time of life.)
The third symptom of Lupus---------- Hair Loss
Hair loss is one of the common symptoms of lupus. Although hair loss is
common when the patients are combing hairs, but if patients complain about a
large number of hair loss on the pillow in the morning, we must pay attention to
this phenomenon. After the disease is under control, the hair will grow back,
but it may take several months, it needs longer time to get better than other
respects.
The fourth symptom of Lupus---------- Joint pain
Most patients of Lupus are suffering from the torment of pain. When the
disease attacks human body seriously, the patient’s whole body feels ache,
affecting muscles, ligaments and joints. Among the young people, joint pain may
be treated as "growing pains", such as pain that is limited to the knees
(Several years ago, SLE patients are often misdiagnosed as rheumatic
fever----this disease has disappeared in most Western countries basically). For
the older patients, they may be suspected of Rheumatoid Arthritis. However, the
joint disease of SLE is different from Rheumatoid Arthritis. With more emotional
words to express, for most patients around the world, SLE Arthritis is not a
disabling disease.
The fifth symptom of Lupus---------- Tendon inflammation
Perhaps the most common characteristics of the Active Lupus are Tendon
inflammation. For example, patients may not be able to Straighten out
fingers，put palms together. Sometimes the tendon pulls joints abnormally may
lead to deformity. An exception but typical lesion is the "lupus-type thumb" --
the thumb is fixed on the "free rider" position. Like features of other lupus,
the trend of tendon inflammation has peaks and valleys. It is usually a kind of
physical symptoms in the body of Lupus patient while without other symptoms.
The sixth symptom of Lupus---------- Veins and arteries
Although there is no doubt that phlebitis - "thrombophlebitis is a common
medical problem, it is an occasional complication of lupus. Obviously,
inflammation of small blood vessels can cause symptoms in the whole body.
The skin may appear red or speckled rash. For the kidney, the Phlebitis may
interfere with the renal blood flow, for the brain, it may cause more obvious
features from slight depression to week condition, as well as produce a variety
of symptoms.
The seventh symptom of Lupus---------- Veins and lungs
The membrane of heart and lungs, that is pericardium and pleura, can get
injury most frequently. So far, the most common complaint is Pleurisy. When take
a deep breath, patient often fell sharp pain in the lower part of chest (usually
in the side or back).
In more serious disease, each layer of membrane of pleura or pericardium may
have effusion and cause short of breath. Although these issues are very serious,
usually the treatment to Lupus has the immediate effect for them. Unfortunately,
the chronic heart or lung disease (which is) caused by Lupus seems more
common.
The eighth symptom of Lupus----------brain
We haven’t figure out the frequency effect of SLE (Systemic Lupus
Erythematosus) on the brain. They reason why we can’t figure out is that the
diagnosis of slight brain injury is very difficult. For example, in clinical, it
is difficult to determine that the Lupus patient have the depression, which is
either a natural reaction for the serious illness and treatment, or an impact of
brain inflammation (although very slight). Like other organs, the brain has the
limitation for inflammation and other "bodily injury" response, such as
interference the normal thinking process (such as depression, hallucinations,
abnormal behavior), even occurrence more obvious abnormalities, such as epilepsy
or develop into a severe migraine.
Obviously, the slight invasion of brain is very common in the period of
active Lupus.
If so, it has a significant meaning for the Lupus patient’s family, nurses
and health workers to understand that the occurrence of psychological depression
may be caused by disease.
One of the positive aspects to control SLE is that these neurological
features can be recovery without leaving damage usually.
Among Lupus patients, one of the most interesting factors which connected
with brain disease is that the Lupus patients for the first time (such as 20
years old) have history of epilepsy in childhood. It prompts people to imagine
these symptoms are connected, that is to say the patient has been suffering
Lupus all the time.
During the acute attack of SLE, especially for the adult patient who once had
epilepsy, it is difficult to judge whether patient suit for drive.
Though, this kind of patients may not break out again, at present there is no
enough specific medical detections which can persuade the law to treat Lupus
patients sympathetically.
The ninth symptom of Lupus----------kidney
Kidney is one of the most vulnerable organs. Compare with other organs which
are also invaded by Lupus, the recovery capability of kidney are limit.
Nevertheless, we know that even the patients with the active nephropathy can
recover till getting rid of drugs.
Just as the name implies, Lupus is caused by two main factors: the deposition
of protein in the kidney filtering organs and the inflammation of supplying
blood vessels in kidney.
Three types of kidney responses are: kidney become "leakage" and can be
detected protein in the urine, blood pressure may rise (only in more serious
case), and chemical impurities, which should be excreted in urine under the
normal condition, are accumulated in the blood.
In all the features of lupus, kidney damage is the most difficult to detect.
Although joint pain or skin rash can let the patient see a doctor quickly, but
the “latent” inflammation in the kidney may cause irreversible damage before
detection.
Therefore, the bad reputation of Lupus is true. On the contrary, it is
obvious that the sever Nephritis can be prevented for Lupus patients without
occurring sever renal damage.
For the patients, whose diseases become “better” (such as disappearance),
they had better do a urine test every few months.
Because manifestations of the kidney disease are limited, the biopsy may be
necessary, the main purpose of which is to look at the sediment yield of protein
and the degree of inflammation. This will affect the amount of the required
treatment obviously.
Traditionally, textbooks tend to cite the number “40%-50%” to express
"serious" kidney damage.
Basically, we can sure that after the slight (earlier) Lupus get diagnosed,
this number will decline.
In the Graham R V Hughes' practice (probably focus on patient with more
serious disease), at the present time, the number is close to 20%. For more
information, please Email us at khkpcn@hotmail.com