Are these Lupus Symptoms?

[Tamia18]

Are these symptoms for Lupus?

I’m 17 years old and recently I have been having several health problems in the last 3 years. The first things that started was severe abdominal pain that the doctors couldn’t seem to explain. Recently I’ve figured out that part of that problem could be due to inflammation. Now it randomly will flare up and the debilitating pain will last a month or longer. Just last month I went to the hospital with severe chest pain so bad that I couldn’t talk or take a deep breath the ER doctor said it was costochondritis and I was down with that for about a month. Right after that was done I got the flu for three weeks and the costochondritis came back. In between that I have had an overall feeling of not feeling well. I have severe headaches almost every morning and that’s generally accompanied by an achey feeling throughout my body. It become more of the norm for me not to feel well then to feel well. Many times my feet will get red and swollen generally at night. I have had iron deficiency anemia all my life. Recently my mom mentioned that it was possible I could have or beginning to develop lupus. My older first cousin has lupus as well she was diagnosed when she was seventeen... my mom did say that she was a little sicker than me but were still wondering couldn’t this be the early stages of it?

I also found out that the chest is the second most common area for rashes on the body... I frequently break out on my chest making it very red but I always assumed that it was some kind of acne.

[johare]

HiTamia18, I'm sorry you have been feeling so unwell whilst so young. It is difficult to say whether symptoms you have are lupus. If you look at the leaflets provided by this site you may see guidelines. There is now strict guidelines that doctors follow to diagnose lupus, including a list of symptoms and blood tests. That is not to say that if you do not fit within all this criteria that you do not have lupus, as many of us have differing signs, or didn't have positive blood results until later in life.

Many viruses also, cross over with these symptoms as do other autoimmune conditions. My advice is to keep a diary of how you feel, what affects you, and take pictures of rashes etc. Take evidence to your gp. They should do basic blood tests to rule out autoimmune conditions. Ley us know how you get on.

[Paul_Howard Partner LUPUS UK]

Hi Tamia18 ,

I'm sorry to hear that you have been feeling so unwell. I'm afraid we are not able to say whether your symptoms could be caused by lupus or not because they are not exclusive to this condition and so other possibilities would also need to be tested for.

Have you discussed your concern about having some form of autoimmune/connective tissue disease with your doctor? A good place to start investigations would be to have an antinuclear antibody (ANA) blood test. You can read more about this and how lupus is diagnosed in our blog article here - lupusuk.org.uk/getting-diag...

If you need more information about lupus and LUPUS UK, we have a free pack which you can request or download from our website at lupusuk.org.uk/request-info...