| Thanks to mis-"managed care", today, diagnosis is more tricky: You don't see the same doctor all the time. Providers aren't held responsible for looking at your separate visits as part of a whole person, so no one connects different symptoms that come and go, and that affect different body parts. There's can be such a delay from when you feel bad until you get seen, the fighting has sometimes stopped. Then, the doctor sees no symptoms, and what do you think s/he thinks? |
| Lupus Mechanics (as explained by Jo Beth) |
Take me back!
| Little tiny blood vessels can get clogged up, causing lack of oxygen, leading to pain and, sometimes, bone or organ death, or nerve and brain weirdness. |
| Pathways for the fluids that lubricate your joints can get clogged up, leading to swelling, pain and stiffness. |
Some days you don't. |
| Pathways that move fluids in and out of cells can clog up, causing too much fluid in some places and not enough in others. Or vice-versa, the very next day. |
Some days you feel like a nut. |
Lupus can drive your body, and you, CRAZY. |
| Think of two guys who keep breaking into fights in hallways. They don't kill each other, but they're laying around all swollen up afterward, and everything breakable around them is smashed. It's hard for anything to get through the hallway. That's what lupus does--the damage is more from the waste products of the body battles than from the battles themselves. Now, touch a part of your body and imagine that it is that hallway. Basically, any part of your body can be affected. Diagnosis can be tricky, 'cause the boys move their fights around, and don't fight all the time. |
