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Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that manifests by inflammation (swelling) and pain in any part of the body. An autoimmune disease means that your immune system attacks healthy tissue, most commonly the skin, joints, and internal organs such as kidneys or lungs. Lupus has no cure but with treatment, the symptoms can be managed and improved. Patients with lupus cannot be managed without treatment because they simply will get a high risk of life-threatening flares. Moreover, it is difficult to predict or generalize about what would happen if it were left untreated because lupus is such a complex and variable;e disease and it depends on person to person severity.
The severity of lupus in each person influenced doctors’ treatment decisions. Then, it is important for the patient to be aware of their symptoms in order to help their doctors in treating themselves. Patients also usually have a regular evaluation to ensure they are not developing life-threatening organ involvement If they already have severe organ involvement, consistent medical treatment is very important. However, a statistic mentioned that up to 50% of lupus patients may have non-life threatening symptoms such as fatigue, rash, and joint pain.
Medication for lupus is mainly for a few goals which are to prevent flares by calming the immune system from attacking the organs and tissues, to treat symptoms when they happen such as swelling and pain, reduce or prevent damage to the joints and reduce or prevent organ damage. There are many different kinds of medicine that can treat lupus since lupus has different symptoms. The most common ones are3 nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and corticosteroids. NSAIDs is a drug that is available over the counter such as ibuprofen and naproxen and is used to reduce mild pain and swelling in joints and muscles.
While corticosteroid is used to help with the inflammation. So it can reduce swelling, tenderness, and pain as well. They also can calm the immune system in high doses and the symptoms can respond very quickly, however, it comes with adverse events such as osteoporosis. Hence, you need to talk to your doctor regarding any new symptoms you may experience. You need to work with your doctor to manage this disease by taking the medicine as your doctor tells you to because a sudden stop of this medicine will harm your body. You also need to have a healthy lifestyle by avoiding smoking, eating healthy foods, getting regular physical activity and managing your weight. The dosage of this medicine will be tapered down by your doctor once the symptoms have improved.
Another medication is antimalarial to stop flares and may help patients with lupus live longer. Some doctors decided to prescribe this medicine to the patient with mild disease because there is evidence that patients may have better prognosis which means antimalarial drugs can lower the severity of flares and have low toxicity. Two common antimalarial drugs that can treat joint pain, skin rashes and lung inflammation are hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine phosphate. Immunosuppressive agents or chemotherapy is also used in treating lupus but in severe cases. It is when lupus attacks major organs and the initial treatments do not work. This drug helps keep the immune system from attacking the body but it can cause serious side effects such as infection since the drug lowers the body’s ability to fight off infections.
People with lupus may need other medicines to treat illnesses that are linked to the lupus such as stroke and heart attack since they are also at risk for blood clots. Anticoagulants may be prescribed by your doctor to help prevent blood clots easily. Examples of anticoagulants are warfarin or heparin. Patients need to take their medication seriously because lupus can cause death. They can expect to live long and healthy with medications. The fatality increases if patients develop kidney disease, heart disease and contracting infections. Overall 5-year survival rates were less than 50% before medication was available back then, but with expanded therapeutic options, 5-year survival rates are now over 95%.
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