what is the medical condition lupus?

Answer 1

Lupus (pronounced: loo-pus) is a disease that involves the immune system and affects about 1.5 million Americans; nearly 90% of those diagnosed with the disease are female. Normally, a person's immune system works by producing immunity cells and antibodies, special substances that fight germs and infections. But when a person has lupus, his or her immune system goes into overdrive and can't tell the difference between some of the body's normal, healthy cells and germs that can cause infection. So the immune system responds by making autoantibodies that attack the body's normal cells.

There are three types of lupus:

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (pronounced: er-uh-thee-muh-toe-sus)
Also called SLE, this is the type of lupus that most people mean when they talk about the disease. It was given its name by a 19th century French doctor who thought that the facial rash of some people with lupus looked like the bite or scratch of a wolf ("lupus" is Latin for wolf and "erythematosus" is Latin for red).

SLE is the most serious form of lupus. Like Chantelle, about 15% of the people who have SLE first start to feel sick when they are teens. SLE can affect the skin, joints, and tendons. It may also affect organs like the brain, heart, lungs, and kidneys.
Discoid (pronounced: dis-koyd) Lupus

This type of lupus is a skin disease that causes a rash on the face, neck, scalp, and ears. It is a much more rare form of lupus than SLE, although about 10% of people with discoid lupus will develop a mild form of SLE. It doesn't affect other body organs the way that SLE can. The rash of discoid lupus can cause scarring, though.
Drug-Induced Lupus

This type of lupus is caused by a reaction to certain kinds of medicines. For example, some types of antiseizure medicines and acne medicines can cause this kind of lupus in teens. Drug-induced lupus is similar to SLE in the ways it affects the body, but once a person stops taking the medicine, the symptoms usually go away.
What Causes Lupus?

No one really knows what causes lupus. Researchers think that some people may be more likely to get it due to things that are out of their control, like:

* gender. Many more women get lupus than men; there are 10 women to every one man with lupus.
* estrogen. This female hormone may be a factor in lupus - almost all women who get lupus are of childbearing age.
* race/ethnicity. Lupus occurs more often in African-American, Asian-American, Latin-American, and Native-American women than in non-Hispanic Caucasian women.
* family history/genetics. About 10% of people with lupus have a family member with lupus.
* major stress or infection. If people have the genetic tendency to get lupus, extreme stress or an infection may trigger the disease - but the blueprint for lupus has to already be there. One thing researchers know about lupus is that it is not contagious. You can't catch any of the three types of lupus from another person. And although lupus involves the immune system, it is not the same as other diseases that involve the immune system,

Answer 2

There are two types of Lupus.

Discoid Lupus Erythematosus, the Merk Medical Manual states that this is a chronic, recurring disorder characterized by clearly defined round, red patches on the skin. It's cause is unkown. The disorder is more common in females, most often women in thier 30's. The age range is much wider than the usual range for systemic lupus erythematosus.

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, the Merk Medical Manual states that this is an Auto-Immune disease that results in episodes of inflammation in joints, tendons and other connective tissues and organs.

Different tissues and organs become inflamed in different people, and the severeity of the disease ranges from mild to debilitating, depending on the number and variety of antibodies that appear and the organs affected. About 90 percent of the people who have lupus are young women in their late teens to 30's, but children, mostly girls, and older men and women can also be affected.

Although lupus can be chronic and ongoing, it usually flares up intermittently. What triggers a flare-up of lupus in people who are predisposed to it, often isn't known, although sunlight seems to be one factor.

Characteristics of Lupus are

Facial rash
Skin rash
Sensitivity to sunlight
Mouth Sores
Fluid around the lungs, heart or other organs
Arthritis
Kidney dysfunction
Low white blood cell count or low platelet count
Nerve or brain dysfunction
Anemia
A Positive results of a blood test for aninuclear antibodies, followed in some cases by positive results of a more specific test for antibodies to double-stranded DNA

I have known only one person with this disease and it was the Systemic type, she had many health issues and in the end, after having it she said for about fourty years, her kidney's went and that lead to her death.

Answer 3

Lupus is a disease that can affect many parts of the body. Everyone reacts differently. One person with lupus may have swollen knees and fever. Another person may be tired all the time or have kidney trouble. Someone else may have rashes. Lupus can involve the joints, the skin, the kidneys, the lungs, the heart and/or the brain. If you have lupus, it may affect two or three parts of your body. Usually, one person doesn’t have all the possible symptoms.

Answer 4

It is an auto-immune disorder. A malfunction of the immune system in that it recognizes normal healthy tissues as the enemy and attacks it. Only a very strict dietary regimine has been proven to ameliorate some of it's devastating, severely painful, crippling effect.

The most that persons suffering from this disease has been able to do so far that will not study and maintain the strict dietary regimine protocol, is to take ever increasing amounts of pain killing drugs, and killer costeroid drugs.