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When Your Body Attacks: Lupus

You're immune system is an incredibly sophisticated operation ran inside your body to help keep you safe and healthy. The immune system can be looked at as a sort of CIA in your body. There are different sectors within the CIA, but they all work together to keep you intact. Although, what if you had a situation where there was a covert group working within your CIA but it was so secretive that their own men wouldn't know who they are? You would possibly run into a situation where their own men would attack them. That does occur in your own body sometimes if you have lupus. Systemic lupus erythmatosus (SLE) or lupus can be a fatal disease. What occurs is your immune system's white-blood cells, that usually identify friendly or hostile matters in your body, incorrectly determine status. The white-blood cells consider your organs to be hostile. Lupus usually harms the skin, joints, blood vessels, liver, kidneys, lungs, heart and nervous system. The attacks to the body's cells and tissues cause tissue damage and inflammation. Throughout the disease the person inflicted will go through periods of illness called flares and through remissions when they feel better.

Signs of lupus can be inconclusive. Lupus if not diagnosed properly can be mistaken for any other disease, because its symptoms are so vague. The symptoms actually take no part in diagnosing a patient with lupus. Nonetheless signs of lupus are fever, malaise, joint pains, multiple muscle pain, and fatigue. Other symptoms can be malar rash or more commonly the butterfly rash. Another skin symptom lupus patients suffer of is discoid lupuses, which are thick red scaly patches on the skin. Most patients suffer joint pain and eventually develop deformities of the hands and feet. There are various other symptoms such as low white blood cell counts, lung inflation, and even seizures.

Within the body of a person that has lupus the immune system creates antibodies against itself. It particularly creates antibodies against proteins in the cell nucleus. SLE can be triggered by unknown environmental factors and drug reactions. Scientific research indicates that lupus can have a genetic link, although no "lupus gene" has been found. Since lupus is found in families there is great possibility that it is genetic, but scientist have yet to locate where in the genetic structure it is derived. There has been a great deal of speculation that it could derive from chromosome six, or rather the altered RUNX-1 binding site. SLE patients share an altered binding site with people who have psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis. Environmental triggers include UV light, certain medications (antidepressants and antibiotics, extreme stress, hormones, and infections. The lupus rash is photosensitive and is therefore triggered by UV radiation. There is also a substantial amount of evidence that leads scientist to believe that UV light is capable of altering the structure of DNA which can lead to the development of autoantibodies found in lupus patients. Lupus is an incredibly difficult disease to live with, and its initial cause still evades scientist. Science advances everyday in the fight against SLE and someday its origin and cure will be available to us all.

By: Dexter Bedd

Dexter Bedd Medical Website

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