Any help please.......

[Debs2811]

First let me say im not a known Lupus sufferer, however I am desperately trying to get to the bottom of my symptoms and find an answer and am wondering if Lupus could be it, so I hope you will forgive me if I rant on a bit about my helth to give you some background and then maybe someone may have some advice (not looking for medical advice just maybe some thoughts to take to my doctor). So here we go.......

Ok so my dad died of cancer (runs in his side of the family) in 1980 when I was 7yrs old, he was diagnosed when I was 2yrs old. I was a very sickly child, always ill with something, never would catch a common cold instead got something slightly worse, tonsillitis, bronchitis etc never a normal cold, I always took longer than other kids to recover too, I got whooping cough at 12 despite being immunised as a baby, and was ill with it for 4 months, doctors always put my poor health down to growing up and then puberty saying by the time I reached , 16 I would be fine. When I started my periods I really suffered with chronic pain again it was all put down to 'growing up'

AT 14 I was diagnosed with excema despite no family link, then at 18 asthma came along following bronchitis, a few months later I was then diagnosed with my first autoimmune problem in the shape of Thrombocytopaenia, I then had a good few yrs before being struck down again and finally being diagnosed with Endometriosis which was probably the cause of my chronic period pains growing up.

In 2002 I was rushed into hospital for emergency surgery following acute pain frm a burse cyst, I was told recovery would take 3 months.....it took a year instead. I then suffered with the Endo pain for 6 yrs unable to receive treatment as my husband and I wanted to try for a baby which never came. In 2009 I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, depression and pernicious anaemia. Treatment has been slow and since then ive really had no life, last yeari was diagnosed with high cholesterol caused by the hypothyroid and also Rheumatoid. Arthritis, now I know alot of these things are autoimmune diseases, and cause fatigue but it is this that I now struggle with the most, so many days I barely make it out of bed, im constantly tired but also have very bad insomnia, I have no life, I have no concentration, my memory is severly affected but the doctors dismiss it, they just keep giving me various sleeping tablets which dont work, so im looking for possible causes that I can suggest to my gp in the hope she will take it more seriously.

So given my medical background and the fact I already have some autoimmune disease s could I also now have lupus or something else?

Sorry for the long post but I need answers from my doc.

[caz59]

Hi my advice is to take all your symptons preferably write them all down to your GP. Also state you were always ill whilst growing up, i say this because i was exactly the same, always having throat infections, always achy with flu like symptons, mouth ulcers. Nobody new about Lupus back in the late fities early sixties, well they didn't know in my area anyway. I was diagnosed 31 years ago after having my first child.

Ask your GP if she could refer you to a rheumatologist at your local hospital, these doctors are the ones to get the ball rolling towards a diagnosis. There will be alot of tests to go through i.e blood tests etc, and it does take a while to get a diagnosis as Lupus is a hard disease to diagnose. It is a great mimicker of other connective tissue disorders so you will have to be very patient in gettting a proper diagnosis. Hope this has helped you in some way. Best of luck to you and i hope you dont get a diagnoses of this disease but hopefully and i pray it will be something that is not so invasive to your body. Take care x