Personal Narrative: Autoimmune Disease

It all started when I had a little knee pain. I ignored it for a few weeks but it became unbearable. It had gotten so bad that I went to the doctor and I knew something wasn’t right. The doctor had sat me down and told me I had a disease. This disease caused me to grow bone spurs all throughout my body and caused me to never be able to play sports again. It had hurt me so bad, but I knew I had to overcome it.

I fight for my health every day in ways most people do not understand I lay in bed struggling just to get up in the morning only to get faced with a new day of troubles. All I think about is the day that being a normal eighteen year old ended for me. I was responsible went to work every day, and was trying to figure out my first year of college until everything was flipped upside down.

It was a week of constant pain stirring throughout my left leg, I didn’t think much of it, “it’ll go away in a week” I told myself. The following day I noticed the sudden swelling of my lower leg, and with that a flood

Szuda, Stephanie “Health: Life with Lupus.” The Times. 11 Jan 2008. 19 Nov 2010. <Mywebtimes.com>

After Dr. Saski looked at my leg he wanted to put a cast on. But, because he didn’t have any more plaster all he can give her was a aspirin for her fever. All I was thinking at that moment, was to stay positive and that things couldn’t get any worse from

Lupus “is predominantly a disease of young women (most commonly affecting women between the ages of 15–45) but can affect men as well” (Hughes & Sangle 2012). “Women of color (Asian and African American) are two to three times more likely to develop Lupus than Northern European women” (Hughes & Sangle 2012). It is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects many parts of the human body including the immune system, joints, skin, and organs within the body. Normally, the human body would produce proteins (antibodies) that protect the body from invaders such as viruses, bacteria and germs. In the human body afflicted with Lupus, the body becomes “autoimmune” and the body is unable to tell the difference between foreign invaders such as those named

A butterfly to many individuals may speak of love, trust, or opportunity yet to some a butterfly could speak of trouble, pain, and vacancy. The butterfly, now attached to a sickening infection, has turned into the image of a rising disease known as Lupus. For many the fight to cure Lupus has taken a major role in their lives.

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the Georgia Council on Lupus Education and Awareness (GCLEA) partnered to increase community awareness on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and to further educate lupus patients throughout the underserved region of southwest Georgia. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, the most common form of lupus, is an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack needed body tissues (“Lupus,” 2018). This specific type of lupus affects major functions of the body including the brain, lungs, skin, and kidneys. Lupus is commonly difficult to diagnose in humans due to its vague symptoms that mimic the symptoms of other major conditions (‘Lupus,” 2017). Presently, researchers are unaware of the origins

"No matter how bad you think your condition is, there are always people who are worse off. " I got this comforting statement from the book, Conception of a Dialysis Patient, written by Fayton Hollington. In this memoir, the author recounts his experiences as a lupus and dialysis patient. Fayton's life has been full of challenges since the day he was diagnosed with lupus. Bit by bit, he takes his audience on a journey through the decades of his battles with chronic medical conditions.

My dad is a 46-year-old, overweight, African American man and for as long as I can remember, he has had swollen knees, ankles and toes. I’d always assumed it was due to his obesity and borderline refusal to take care of himself, though he insisted it was because he worked too long and too hard six days a week to take care of me and the rest of the family. That was enough for me to keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t until a few years ago, that the pain in his right big toe got bad enough for him to finally decide to go to the hospital. Nurses, doctors, and podiatrists, all said the same thing – my father’s pain and inflammation came from a certain kind of arthritis called gout. They all said that his current weight wasn’t making matters all that easier. His doctor relayed that if he lost about one hundred pounds and took the anti-inflammatory drugs they prescribed he should see a dramatic relief of pain.

Autoimmune diseases are a growing concern in the American population. An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from autoimmune diseases with 75% of these cases being of women. Furthermore, autoimmune diseases have grown to be within the top 10 causes of death among American women. The incidences of these diseases have been shown to increase with financial wealth, industrial development, and the modern progression of life. As such, the occurrence of these conditions is expected to grow as time passes. With such a notable modern influence, it is shocking that these diseases were not considered of clinical relevance until the 1950s. The investigation of the mechanisms of the propagation of these diseases have been of immense scientific relevance ever since. The complicated immunological background behind infection and treatment of autoimmune diseases while interesting from a scientists perspective, means that from the perspective of treatment there is a long arduous path until new, efficient treatments will show an appreciable decrease in the occurrence of these diseases within American population.

Living with arthritis I have learned that I am a fighter and stronger than I thought I could be. I was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis when I was 9 years old. Never having any signs or symptoms I woke up one morning and my whole life would change from that moment on. That morning i woke up with all my joints swollen and in severe pain. When the pediatrician could not find what was wrong my parents eventually took me to a Rheumatologist who diagnosed me with Juvenile Arthritis. I started taking methotrexate and mericousely after a year it looked like I was in remission. I went back to being able to do all the activities and sports my peers were doing and I thought it was behind me. Then three years later signs started showing that it might be returning

Close to the end of Kindergarten, I was extremely sick. Normally, even when I was sick, I would still be playing and doing what any other little girl would do. However, this time it shocked my parents deeply. While I was ill I did not want to eat anything, I always wanted something to drink and I was losing an extreme amount of weight for a six year old girl; to the point where my clothes did not fit me correctly and my underwear hung on me instead of being snug. I was not healthy by any definition. I was sleeping constantly and when I bent over, you could count all of the vertebrae in my back. Concerned, my mom called my pediatrician and they decided to bring me in the next day; instead of waiting until my annual birthday check-up.

Gloria, I can tell you that you are right about the Lyme's disease. I was diagnosed with it 3 years ago and because I went so long without being treated, I also ended up with Viral Meningitis. I was not only experiencing The Most Severe Headaches I had ever had, but fevers, I could not walk or talk, I did not eat because I felt like my throut would not let anything down it. It was as if the muscles stopped working, the doctor said that I was right, my brain had so much fluid on it that it was pressing against my skull. I lay in bed for 6 weeks thinking I was going insane. I was treated with high doses of Doxycycline and then IV drip treatments. This past month has been hard due to this darn disease peaking whenever I am very stressed.

Seems Lupus is getting disobedient ... It’s time to teach it some discipline. But, before that you have to bring it in your life.