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| It's a good thing I've lost my vanity! |
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| Four months earlier, it wasn''t quite so bad.. |
(Feb. 12, 2015) Although I've had this lupus-variant disease for five years, this is only the second time that its dermatological manifestation has burst forth in such a florid and painful way. It itches and burns, oozes and crawls. It spreads. I am helpless. The first time this happened, it took nine months for it to go away. It can cause very unsightly scarring.
The rash is the least of the worries of those with lupus. Our flares cause destructive inflammation of all major bodily systems, most importantly our kidneys and nervous systems, including our brains. I am exhausted, dizzy, unsteady and achy. I stutter and fall over. It's hard for me to type, or to write legibly. My vision is blurred. I can't sleep. My brain is foggy. My morale is very low. I just want to be in a coma until it's over.
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| Here's how it looked in my younger years (2010, that is).. |
Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly younger women, suffer from this autoimmune condition, which is said to be the only one that is potentially fatal (I disagree with that). There's only been one new medication developed for it in the past 50 years, and it bombed. I take an antimalarial medication -- Plaquenil -- that is thought to moderate lupus flares by exerting an anti-inflammatory effect. Steroids are often prescribed, but I refuse to take them -- they are too destructive to be worth it, in my opinion.
To read more about lupus, and my often rather colorful experiences trying to get a credible diagnosis and treatment plan, do a search for lupus in the box at the top left of my blog.