Lupus is a devastating disease that affects several million people, almost 90% of women. Too often considered an elusive disease, with 'vague' symptoms, as fatigue and joint pains, the Lupus disease is a terrible one. Sometimes, the Lupus disease it is not recognized and it is stored in the category of psychosomatic disorders.


But what really happens is that the immune system loses the ability to distinguish between its own cells and tissues and what the 'invading' elsewhere. The immune system attacks the skin, joints, blood and major organs such as kidneys, heart, and brain.


The Lupus disease symptoms vary greatly in different patients and this makes it difficult to diagnose. The pain may move from an 'articulation to another and may be accompanied by swelling, redness and increase or weight loss. Other external Lupus disease symptoms can be rashes on the skin and ulceration of the mucous membranes of the nose or mouth.



The name of the disease comes from the characteristic rash that may appear on the face, in a position reminiscent of the speckles of the snout of the wolf.


There are three types of lupus: the discoid, which affects mainly the skin, the system is the most serious and can affect any organ of the body and that induced by drugs, which usually subsides with discontinuation of the latter.


Lupus is a chronic disease. According to the Lupus Foundation of America, the disease affects more people than multiple sclerosis, sickle cell anemia and leukemia, yet it is still little known and little research is supported by comparison with other diseases.


Care more successfully when diagnosed early, but patients do not come easily to diagnosis. It can take many years before an encounter specialist can recognize and treat the disease.


To fight the ignorance so widespread, the foundation has launched several initiatives, including campaigns with high impact. The campaign of '97, whose title is: "Stop the disease!" included video and printed images of women, containing the provocative phrase "Because we do not believe that the pain of lupus is real! Maybe because most of the victims are women". Another publication created for the newspapers shows a young woman, with an inscription on the shirt: "If I were a man would you take my pain more seriously?"


Lupus does not fear it is not understood. If someone mentions cancer what is intuitively evokes something devastating, awful. At the word lupus answers "yes, I've heard of it.



One wonders whether it is not diminished because people who suffer from it are mostly young women. If a child says "I am exhausted and I can not move the joints in the morning" will certainly be taken very seriously. A girl will be asked if she has a boyfriend.


A person with lupus is faced with a rejection similar throughout the world. The same is true even within families of patients and is often favored looking quite normal patients.


Information campaigns are needed to broaden the knowledge of the disease and to raise funds for research. The ultimate goal is to find the cause and then cure. As one of the advertisements says, the disease is real, as the pain makes it real.