Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). When you have lupus, the body attacks the healthy tissues that’s supposed to fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs. Normally our immune system produces proteins called antibodies that protects the body from these invaders. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues and creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue. These autoantibodies cause inflammation, pain, and damage in various parts of the body. Lupus is also a disease of flares, the symptoms worsen and you feel ill, and remissions (the symptoms improve and you feel better). (Wallace)
Common symptoms of Lupus includes feeling very tired and having joint pain or swelling (arthritis), a fever, and skin rashes. The rash often happens after you have been in the sun. People with Lupus may suffer from mouth sores and hair loss. Over time, some people with lupus have problems with the heart, lungs, kidneys, blood cells, or nervous system. (Wallace)
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Inflammation of the skin is often an early sign of lupus that usually results in thinning of the hair and loss of eyelashes, eyebrows, facial hair, and body hair. Hair may grow back with treatment. However, permanent hair loss occurs when lesions form on the scalp. Most people don’t even notice the 50 to 100 strands of hair that they usually lose every day. With systemic lupus, the situation can be very different, with the loss of hair much more dramatic and noticeable. Lupus hair loss can be caused by the disease itself, as the immune system destroys hair follicles, or by medicines such as prednisone (a synthetic drug similar to cortisone, used to relieve rheumatic and allergic conditions and to treat leukemia). (Your Immune