Saturday, July 13, 2013

Lupus Bracelets And The Disease Itself

By Carmella Watts


There is a chronic disease where different areas of the body are affected and this particular disease is known as Lupus. It has been known to affect the skin, the joints, the blood and the kidneys. Basically, the immune system can go haywire and attack the tissues and cells that it was supposed to protect, causing a lot of damage and pain. Sympathizers and supports of the afflicted have been known to wear lupus bracelets.

It can be a very mild but constant disease for a lot of people afflicted with it. In those cases, the symptoms are manageable and the pain and the discomforts are kept to a minimum. Sadly, there are more extreme cases where the symptoms cause tremendous amounts of pain and the life of the patient is legitimately in danger.

It is an idiopathic illness, meaning no one is truly sure as to what causes it to manifest in the first place. One common link that can be pointed out is the risk factor involved if a close blood relative has the illness, although this link is not an exact genetic evidence and none so far have been established.

Some factors have also been speculated to contribute to its development, such as excessive sunlight exposure or long term usage of certain medications. The malfunctioning immune system will no longer be able to tell the difference between antigens and the normal cells and will send antibodies to attack indiscriminately. This accounts for the myriad of symptoms and damage throughout the body.

One type of the disease is the discoid, which is defined and identified by the rashes that appears. They normally appear on the face, the scalp and the neck. Hair will fall out in the areas where the rash is. Those on the face are often called butterfly rashes. Often lasting mere days, some can last months and years even.

The more famous sub type is the systemic variant, which is also the more dangerous of the two. The organs affected are numerous. The heart, lungs, nervous system and kidneys are the ones most likely to be targeted. The number of organs damaged vary between one to several at the same time.

Decreased organ function, fever, fatigue and join paint are a few examples of the many symptoms of systemic lupus. Every now and then there are what is known as periods of remission. Periods of activity may also flare up, thus accounting for the term flares, which is used to describe it. Flares usually last for days and will come and go seemingly at random.

The diagnosis can be hard to come by. Few things can be done, with blood tests and biopsies as prime examples. A lot of times, the best thing to produce would be a medical history of the family in order to determine certain things.

Sadly, there is no known cure of this. The flares may respond to treatment, but not all the time. There are cases with immune suppressing medication being added to the mix for the purpose of slowing down auto antibody production. Lupus bracelets and other products are made out of support for those suffering from this and sometimes, that is the best people can do about it.




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