Yes, lupus can directly affect your personality and mental state through "neuropsychiatric lupus," causing symptoms like irritability, anger, mood swings, anxiety, and cognitive issues (lupus fog), stemming from the disease's impact on the brain or as a reaction to treatments, leading to feeling unlike yourself. These changes, including depression and personality shifts, can be part of the illness itself, making emotional well-being a crucial aspect of lupus management, notes WebMD, ScienceDirect.com, and Lupus Research Alliance, say ScienceDirect.com and HSS | Hospital for Special Surgery.
Lupus feels like a rollercoaster of unpredictable symptoms, most commonly overwhelming fatigue, joint pain/swelling, fevers, and skin issues like the characteristic "butterfly rash" on the face, often worsening in flares triggered by sun or stress, but it varies greatly, affecting different people's skin, joints, kidneys, brain, or other organs.
With lupus, avoid excessive sun, infections, smoking, stress, and certain supplements (like alfalfa, echinacea) or foods (processed, high salt) that trigger flares; never stop or alter prescribed meds without talking to your doctor; and don't ignore fatigue, getting enough rest is crucial for managing this autoimmune condition.
Many people with lupus have trouble sleeping. If you are waking up a lot at night or having trouble falling asleep, this can lead to more tiredness and fatigue throughout the day.
Some lupus complications can include:
Lupus can attack many different parts of the body. Some call it the cruel mystery. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that can strike any part of the body, but the wide range of symptoms can be easily mistaken for something else.
What are lupus flares?
The most common manifestation of neuro-lupus is cognitive dysfunction, which is characterized by clouded thinking, confusion, and impaired memory. Eighty percent of lupus patients who have had lupus for ten years or more will experience this condition.
Lupus can also cause other problems in the abdomen, including peritonitis (inflammation of the abdominal lining) and ascites (a build-up of fluids in the abdomen). Symptoms of peritonitis and ascites include: Abdominal pain and swelling. Nausea and vomiting.
Early Signs and Symptoms
The medicines used most often to manage lupus include:
Lupus symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, and pain can get in the way of your workload. To minimize them, first work with your doctor to come up with an effective treatment plan. There's no cure for lupus, but the right treatment can reduce flare-ups, address symptoms, and prevent complications.
Symptoms
Having lupus can make everyday life challenging. When your lupus is active, symptoms like joint stiffness, pain, fatigue, confusion, or depression can make simple tasks difficult — and sometimes impossible.
August 29 — The Lupus Research Alliance is excited to share the good news that a potential new medicine for lupus, anifrolumab, reduced disease activity versus placebo in a second Phase III study. Anifrolumab is a therapeutic antibody that blocks type I interferons, a molecule that promotes lupus inflammation.
Lupus can also affect your hair and nails
The most common type of lupus, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), can cause dry, coarse hair to develop along the hairline. These dry, coarse hairs break off easily, causing the sparse-looking hair known as lupus hair. Other types of hair loss also develop.
Currently, there are no known causes or cures for the disease, just treatments to manage lupus. Symptoms of lupus include skin rash, fever, pain/swelling in joints, etc. Recently, studies have also identified sleep disturbance as one of the more common symptoms, occurring in around 50%-80% of people living with SLE.
People with lupus should avoid certain supplements, including echinacea, spirulina, and vitamin E. These supplements may increase the immune system response and trigger lupus symptoms. It is also helpful to avoid excess sun exposure, salt, and alfalfa sprouts, which may also make symptoms worse.
According to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) nomenclature published in 1999,1 there are 19 peripheral and CNS syndromes that are associated with lupus (Table 1). Five of the CNS symptoms are psychiatric symptoms: acute confusional state, anxiety disorder, cognitive dysfunction, mood disorder, and psychosis.
Patients with NPSLE typically present with nonspecific symptoms, such as headache and cognitive impairment, but might also experience devastating features, such as memory loss, seizures and stroke.
Two nationwide population-based cohort studies found that SLE was associated with a higher risk of dementia (42, 43). Another large data analysis that included more than four thousand SLE patients and twenty-four thousand age and gender matched non-SLE controls found an increased risk of dementia in SLE patients (44).
Treating a lupus flare
The most common symptom of lupus is fatigue, which means feeling extremely tired. Fatigue can affect a person's physical and mental health and quality of life. It can also make it hard for people with lupus to socially connect with others.
Although extremely rare, autoimmune diseases can develop after COVID-19 infection (2). However, cases of SLE specifically after COVID-19 are uncommon. Only two cases of SLE manifesting after COVID-19 infection have been noted in literature.