Lupus - Symptoms and Causes of Lupus Lupus is an autoimmune disease that can affect different parts of the body, including skin, joints, heart, lungs, blood, kidneys and brain. Normally the body's immune system makes proteins called antibodies to protect the body against viruses, bacteria and other foreign bodies. These objects are called antigens.
If you have lupus, your immune system attacks the cells and tissues by mistake. This can damage your joints, skin, blood vessels and organs. There are several types of lupus. The most common type, systemic lupus erythematosus, affects many parts of the body. Discoid lupus causes a rash that does not disappear. Lupus erythematosus causes sores after being in the sun. Another type can be caused by drugs. Neonatal lupus, which is rare, affects newborns.
The symptoms of lupus
For most people with lupus, including Jane, lupus is a mild disease affecting only a few organs. For others, it can cause serious and even fatal.
No two cases of lupus are exactly alike. Signs and symptoms may appear suddenly or develop slowly, may be mild or severe and may be temporary or permanent. Most people with lupus experience episodes - called "flares" - of worsening signs and symptoms that eventually improve or even disappear completely for a while.
Lupus can be difficult to diagnose because its symptoms can vary from one person to another. Symptoms can also watch lupus, like some other diseases. For example, like Chantelle, people with lupus may feel weak and tired. They may have muscle aches, loss of appetite, swollen glands, and hair loss. Sometimes they have abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.
Most people with lupus develop skin rashes are often an important clue to rashes.These diagnosis. In addition to the butterfly rash on cheeks and nose, other common symptoms include skin sores or flaky red spots on arms, hands, face, neck or back of the mouth or wounds to the lips, and a scaly, red or purple raised rash on the face, neck, scalp, ears, arms and chest.
Causes of Lupus
Lupus is not known, it is probable that there is no single cause but a combination of genetic, environmental and possibly hormonal factors that work together to cause disease. Lupus is not contagious, you can not catch it from someone. No specific "lupus gene" has been found, but it does run in families.
The causes of lupus are not completely understood, the disease appears to result from an interaction of genetic, environmental (such as ultraviolet light, stress, infections, certain drugs and chemicals) and hormonal factors.
Even if one identical twin is much more likely to spread if his brother has the same lupus, the likelihood of developing the disease in the affected twin is not 100%. Despite the almost identical genetic composition of identical twins, the likelihood of twins affected develop the disease if the other twin has it is around 30-50% or less.
Sun exposure (ultraviolet) is a known agent in the environment that can worsen the rash of lupus patients and sometimes trigger outbreaks of disease as a whole.
Doctors do not know what causes autoimmune diseases like lupus. It is likely that lupus results from a combination of your genetics and your environment. Doctors believe that you can inherit a predisposition to lupus, lupus, but not itself. Instead, people with an inherited predisposition for lupus may develop the disease when they come into contact with something in the environment that can trigger lupus, such as a drug or virus.
Posted on February 15, 2010.