Lupus is more common than many people think. Medical experts are learning more about lupus all the time, but it’s a disease that’s still often misunderstood. If you suspect that you have lupus, you’ll probably need to see an expert like Dr. Jeffrey Miller. Many physicians might not successfully recognize a lupus case when they see it, making it especially important for potential lupus patients to understand the characteristics of the illness.
Unexplained Types Of Pain
Lupus is a particularly painful condition. If you have lupus, you might struggle with taking deep breaths. The simple act of inhaling too strongly could be too difficult for a lupus patient. To make matters worse, you might also get ulcers around the mouth, which could contribute to breathing or eating difficulties.
The pain associated with lupus tends to be muscular in nature, however, which means that you could have many different forms of pain at once. Lupus patients are sometimes falsely diagnosed with arthritis, since lupus can cause joint pain and stiffness. As a lupus sufferer, you might also feel weak and tired as a result of various symptoms that all reinforce one another.
Weakness And Exhaustion
Lupus patients often have a difficult time eating. The mouth ulcers can make the act of eating itself harder, and many of them won’t experience regular hunger pangs. As lupus patients fail to get enough food, they might start to feel weaker and less energetic.
To make matters worse, lupus tends to cause fatigue in general. It’s also common for lupus patients to have high fevers. People are used to resting when they have fevers in order to give their bodies the chance to fight off an infection. Unfortunately, lupus is an autoimmune condition that won’t disappear unaided. It isn’t possible to completely eliminate lupus, but various treatments can still help you if you are a lupus patient.
Coping With Lupus
Since lupus causes inflammation, the medications that can counteract inflammation are particularly valuable. Medications that can help to suppress the immune system are also useful when it comes to treating an autoimmune disease like lupus.
Your symptoms may not go away entirely if you have lupus, but you might only have to live with mild symptoms at different points throughout your life. Many autoimmune conditions will flare up and then subside, and this is certainly the case with lupus.
If you’re a person who already tends to lead a healthy lifestyle, you’ll be relatively successful with regulating your lupus symptoms. Staying out of the sun can help lupus patients, and it’s a good habit for anyone. Sunscreen is recommended for everyone, and it’s especially important for lupus patients.
Getting enough exercise can also help lupus patients. Strenuous exercise will be particularly difficult under those circumstances, and there’s no need for lupus patients to exert themselves on that level. Taking a walk every day for a half an hour or so can already make a difference for lupus sufferers. Walking helps with circulation, and it can strengthen the muscles that might be affected by lupus.
There may also be new treatments available for lupus in the future, as researchers study the condition more thoroughly. In the meantime, it’s a disease that experts can help to address, even if they can’t cure it completely.