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The skin, joints, blood, and kidneys are usually the parts of the body most affected by lupus. Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease, and it is known that in the patients who have this autoimmune disorder, the immune system loses its ability to tell the difference between antigens and its own cells and tissues. There will be developed antibodies, and this will lead to immune complexes. These immune complexes build up in the tissues, and will bring inflammation, injury to tissues, and pain.
Systemic lupus erythematosus, the most common form of lupus can determine inflammation in the skin, muscles, joints, heart, lungs, kidneys, blood vessels and the nervous system. Most of the patients with lupus experience joint and/or muscle pain at some time during the course of their illness.
Discoid lupus, which is another form of lupus affects only the skin, and produces a rash on the head, neck and scalp.
Lupus affects a lot of people, being more common in women than in men, it can occur at any age, but usually it affects women of childbearing age.
There are a lot of signs and symptoms for lupus, and they can vary from person to person. In some persons, there can appear flare-ups, which are periods of activity or inflammation, and remissions- the period of inactivity. As symptoms there can appear fever and loss of appetite, low energy and fatigue, pain in the muscles and joints of the hands, arms, shoulders, feet, knees, hips or jaws, sensitivity to sunlight, changes in the color of the fingers when they are cold, sudden and unexplained weight loss or weight gain. We can also mention skin rashes, increase in the number and severity of headaches, increase in loss of hair over the whole scalp, swelling of the feet and legs and chest pain when lying down or taking deep breaths, but there can be other symptoms as well.
Because lupus can cause a lot of symptoms and these symptoms differ from person to person, diagnosis can be quite difficult. In order to reach a diagnosis, the doctor will analyze all the symptoms, and will perform some tests. It is known that lupus treatment can be more effective when there is early detection.
Although scientists did not find a cure for lupus yet, the prognosis is better than in the past. Some people with lupus have severe recurrent attacks and need hospitalization, but there are a lot of lupus patients who never have to be hospitalized.
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