Table of Contents

1. Defining Lupus
   
2. Understanding What Causes Lupus
   
3. Symptoms of Lupus
   
4. Diagnosing Lupus
   
5. Treating Lupus
   
6. Lupus and Quality of Life
   
7. Pregnancy for Women With Lupus
   
8. Hope for the Future
   

Defining Lupus

Lupus is a disorder of the immune system known as an autoimmune disease.  In autoimmune diseases, the body harms its own healthy cells and tissues.  This leads to inflammation and damage to various body tissues.  Lupus can affect many parts of the body,including the joints, skin, kidneys, heart,lungs blood vessels, and brain.  Although people with the disease may have many different symptoms, some of the most common ones include extreme fatigue, painful or swollen joints (arthritis), unexplained fever, skin rashes, and kidney problems.

Symptoms of lupus can be controlled with appropriate treatment, and most people with the disease can lead active, healthy lives.

At present, there is no cure for lupus However, lupus can be very successfully treated with appropriate drugs, and most people with the disease can lead active, healthy lives.  Lupus is characterized by periods of illness, called flares, and periods of when symptoms are less severe. Understanding how to prevent flares and how to treat them when they do occur helps people with lupus maintain better health.  Intense research is underway and scientists are continuing to make great strides in understanding the disease, which may ultimately lead to a cure.

Two of the questions researchers are studying are who gets lupus and why. We know that many more women than men have lupus.  Lupus is three times more common in African American women than in Caucasian women and is also more common in women of Hispanic, Asian, and Native American descent.  In addition, lupus can run in families, but the risk that a child or a brother or sister of a patient will have lupus is still  quite low.  It is difficult to estimate how many people in the United States have the disease because its symptoms vary widely and its onset is often hard to pinpoint.

Although "lupus" is used as a broad term, there are actually several kinds of lupus:

• Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is the form of the disease that most people are referring to when they say "lupus."  The word "systemic" means the disease can affect many parts of the body.  The symptoms of SLE may be mild or serious.  Although SLE usually first affects people between the ages of 15 and 45 years, it can occur in childhood or later in life as well.
• Discoid lupus Erythematosus refers to a skin disorder in which a red, raised rash appears on the face, scalp, or elsewhere.  The raised areas may become thick and scaly, and may cause scarring.  The rash may last for days or years and may recur.  A small percentage of people with discoid lupus have or develop SLE.
• Drug-induced lupus refers to a form of lupus caused by specific medications. Symptoms are similar to those of SLE (arthritis, rash, fever, and chest pain)that typically go away when the drug is stopped.
• Neonatal lupus is a rare form of lupus affecting newborn babies of women with SLE or certain other immune system disorders.  At birth, the babies have a skin rash, liver abnormalities, or low blood counts, which entirely go away over several months. However, babies with neonatal lupus may have a serious heart defect.  Physicians can identify most at-risk mothers, allowing for prompt treatment of the infant at or before birth.  Neonatal lupus is very rare, and most infants of mothers with SLE are entirely healthy.

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