Update on my stepdad again

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Originally Posted by Laura's Babies

I had a friend that had it many years ago but it took forever for them to figure out what she had and she darn near died several times before they finally figured out what she had. It took them something like 3 years to figure it out. Why is it so hard for the doctors to recognize?

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Because the symptoms are so varied and different in most patients.
Ohhhhhh....it took a long while to figure out what my ex wife had....I think she exhibited symptoms for some 3 or 4 years before she was diagnosed.
But the rash on the face, which to doctors is a dead giveaway of the disease, doesn't appear on a lot of people.....my ex never had the rash, mainly she had VERY sore joints...all joints were affected, from toes all the way up to the fingers. Some days, she couldn't pick up a pen to write......so the doctors thought she had arthritis for a very long time. And all the time this was happening, her very own anti-bodies were munching away at her kidneys and liver......no one knew.

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Originally Posted by sparks19

Yeah he needs to go to a specialist so they can figure out what "kind" of lupus it is and then they can figure out treatment for it.

When we all started discussing the idea that it might be lupus it just made a lot of sense and he's slowly been showing signs over the past few years. First was the joint pain. He always complained about how his shoulders would get so bad he couldn't lift his arm. He just attributed it to all the painting and maintenance work he was doing but even with arthritis you don't get as bad as he was and arthritis can get pretty bad.

Then he got sick and has been battling that for over a year. Then the rash and reaction to the sun started and I think that's when my mom really started looking at lupus.

They say it's a disease that mostly affects women but seems to be affecting more and more men.

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Yes, they are all typical symptoms, especially the joints, thats what starts usually first, and it lasts a long time before your body starts feeling ill.
My ex never got the rash, nor was she exhibiting any symptoms when in the sun......but who knows, it was a long time ago now....perhaps a day in the sun would give her joint pain a day or two later....it's hard to put 2 and 2 together really.
And yeah.....it was mostly women, as I said, it started with Asian women who lived in western countries.......there were no cases in Asia at all.
Now men are getting it......it MUST be something in the environment that causes it.

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Originally Posted by sparks19

Yeah he needs to go to a specialist so they can figure out what "kind" of lupus it is and then they can figure out treatment for it.

When we all started discussing the idea that it might be lupus it just made a lot of sense and he's slowly been showing signs over the past few years. First was the joint pain. He always complained about how his shoulders would get so bad he couldn't lift his arm. He just attributed it to all the painting and maintenance work he was doing but even with arthritis you don't get as bad as he was and arthritis can get pretty bad.

Then he got sick and has been battling that for over a year. Then the rash and reaction to the sun started and I think that's when my mom really started looking at lupus.

They say it's a disease that mostly affects women but seems to be affecting more and more men.

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He needs to see an Immunologist Sparksy, because it is an immune disorder.

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Originally Posted by wombat2u2004

He needs to see an Immunologist Sparksy, because it is an immune disorder.

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that might be who or what he's going to see. Either way it's a specialist that deals with lupus and things of the like. Now it's just a question on how soon he can get in to see them.

All the info is being relayed to me through my mom as I'm 9 hours away. As of yesterday he hadn't been in contact with the specialist yet. he just found out yesterday.

hopefully they have some updates for me tonight

Fair enuf. The sooner he gets in the better I guess.

Tanya, lupus is an auto-immune disease. There can be more than one member of a family with an auto-immune problem - not necessarily the same one, though.

For example, my daughter-in-law has MS and her father has Crohns. There are many, many others - like Type 1 Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Grave's disease. And some poor people end up with 2 all by themselves :(

Yeah I think his mother had lupus... or maybe it was his aunt. I can't remember now.