care for Lupus

Lupus Awareness Campaign

Sunday, September 04, 2005

What is Lupus

Lupus is an autoimmune (AW-toe-ih-MYOON) disease, a type of self-allergy, whereby the patient's immune system creates antibodies which instead of protecting the body from bacteria & viruses attack the person's own body tissues. It is neither infectious nor contagious.

Lupus is a disease that can affect many parts of the body & each person's profile or list of symptoms is different. 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.

Lupus can mimic other diseases, such as multiple sclerosis & rheumatoid arthritis, making it difficult to diagnose. Currently there is no single test that can definitely say whether a person has lupus or not. Only by comprehensive examination and consideration of symptoms and their history can a diagnosis be achieved.

There are three main types of lupus:

Systemic lupus erythematosus (eh-RITH-eh-muh-TOE-sus) is the most common form. It’s sometimes called SLE, or just lupus. The word “systemic” means that the disease can involve many parts of the body such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain. SLE symptoms can be mild or serious.
Discoid lupus erythematosus mainly affects the skin. A red rash may appear, or the skins on the face, scalp, or elsewhere may change color.
Drug-induced lupus is triggered by a few medicines. It’s like SLE, but symptoms are usually milder. Most of the time, the disease goes away when the medicine is stopped. More men develop drug-induced lupus because the drugs that cause it, hydralazine and procainamide, are used to treat heart conditions that are more common in men.

What is Lupus Awareness Campaign?

Lupus Awareness Campaign (LAC) is a program started by Rusnita Saleh, a writer-training and information specialist, who is also lupus sufferer (now remission phase – lupus nephritis) by collect, write and publish materials related to SLE in free website: http://care4lupus.blogspot.com and created a mailing list with same subject concern to share knowledge and information about SLE symptoms and guidance to cope and start healthy living.

The program now start to broad not only limited to mailing list and web pages, but also broadcast through radios and now publish some booklets, pamphlets and books about lupus related topics. These publications will be spread to hospitals, community centers, resource centers with the access to public audiences.

In the future, we hope we can go further educate productive ages audiences, most importantly women (since the sufferer 90% are women), by building special class /seminars to give potentials patients and sufferers themselves a real discussion and face to face with their friends in need.

Our long term program after some evaluation, hopefully we can enhance the program to phase II where awareness not only to help public acknowledge about SLE, but also take action to help sufferers directly managing and coping the illness.

Why is this campaign important?

Up until now, there is no cure yet for lupus. People diagnosed with lupus normally remain under medical care with continuing medication. Many symptoms have less impact as a result, but side effects can often occur. Lupus can adversely influence the lives of those who suffer the illness, their families & friends.

Since handling this sickness is not an easy task, all sufferers, families and medication specialist need to know more about this unique sickness and techniques in how to manage health condition during and post attack. Up until now learning symptoms and best-worst practices in way to gain healthy living around SLE is the best way to cope and handle the situation.

What You can Do to help this program run well

Since the program now is trying to publish materials and building training tools, it needs special budget and volunteers to help its smooth running. Please contact us for further details information. Your roles in helping lupus sufferers and their family can also start from now by spreading this program information to others and let generous hands work for good.

Lupus Awareness Campaign Founder,

Rusnita Saleh

Kayu Putih Indah A-2

Jl. Kayu mas raya – Jakarta 13210

Indonesia

Email: rusnitasaleh@gmail.com

Cell: +62.8551000.672

Fax: +6221. 4788.1962

Blogged on 9:37 PM