It can affect your joints, tendons, kidneys, and skin. It can affect blood vessels. And it can affect organs such as the heart, lungs, and brain. It can cause rashes, fatigue, pain, and fever.
In the most severe forms of SLE, the kidney and the central nervous systems are affected (23). The patients with renal lupus will present with abnormalities in the urine (blood and/or protein in the urine) and oftentimes edema.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease link—a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks the body's own cells and organs. Kidney disease caused by lupus may get worse over time and lead to kidney failure. If your kidneys fail, you will need dialysis or a kidney transplant to maintain your health.
Lupus can rarely cause vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels) in the intestines, sometimes called lupus enteritis. Symptoms include: Abdominal pain (pain in the belly area) Feeling very full or bloated.
Muscle and joint pain.
This affects most people with lupus. Common areas for muscle pain and swelling include the neck, thighs, shoulders, and upper arms.
It can affect your joints, tendons, kidneys, and skin. It can affect blood vessels. And it can affect organs such as the heart, lungs, and brain. It can cause rashes, fatigue, pain, and fever.
Based on the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC)/American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Damage Index, organ damage must be present for at least six months to be accepted as “damage.” Once it has persisted for at least six months, it is considered to be permanent, which may have a significant ...
Lupus can cause serious kidney damage, and kidney failure is one of the leading causes of death among people with lupus. Brain and central nervous system. If your brain is affected by lupus, you may experience headaches, dizziness, behavior changes, vision problems, and even strokes or seizures.
Kidneys About one half of people with lupus experience kidney involvement, and the kidney has become the most extensively studied organ affected by lupus.
Many people with lupus sometimes have confusion, memory loss, and trouble expressing thoughts. The medical term is cognitive dysfunction. These symptoms can come and go. Lupus brain fog can be frustrating, but you can learn to live with your symptoms and improve your quality of life.
For some people, living with and managing lupus can cause weight gain. Weight gain may also lead to worsening lupus symptoms and complications associated with obesity. Some potential causes of weight gain that relate to lupus may include: being a side effect of medications such as corticosteroids.
Cardiovascular disease, not lupus itself, is the number one cause of death in people with lupus. (It is actually the number one cause of death around the world.) The number two cause of death for people with lupus is infection.
Severe abdominal pain. Chest pain or shortness of breath. Seizures. New onset of a fever or if your fever is much higher than usual.
Lupus causes inflammation throughout the body, which can cause problems in organs, including: Kidney damage that can lead to changes in kidney function, including kidney failure. This is called lupus nephritis. Seizures and memory problems due to changes in the brain and central nervous system.
Overall, SLE gradually gets worse over time, and damage to the major organs of the body can be life-threatening.
Lupus is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease with a wide range of clinical presentations resulting from its effect on multiple organ systems. There are four main types of lupus: neonatal, discoid, drug-induced, and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the type that affects the majority of patients.
Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body, including the skin, joints, and organs inside the body. About 9 out of 10 adults with lupus are women. Some women have only mild symptoms.
Common symptoms that indicate a flare are: Ongoing fever not due to an infection. Painful, swollen joints. An increase in fatigue.
Inflammation from lupus can also cause fluid to accumulate in the abdominal cavity. This condition, known as ascites, can cause severe abdominal pain, tenderness of the belly, nausea, vomiting, fever, and the lack of bowel movements.
Hair loss is common in people living with lupus. The autoimmune disease causes body-wide inflammation that attacks the joints and skin, including the scalp. This can result in hair loss (alopecia ). Lupus-related hair loss can occur slowly, causing hair to become noticeably thinner gradually.