You're not legally required to tell your employer you have lupus. Your symptoms and the type of work you do may determine how much you decide to share. But telling your employer and co-workers about your condition means they can provide help when you need it.
Many people with lupus are able to continue to work, although they may need to make changes in their work environment. Flexible work hours, job-sharing, and telecommuting may help you to keep working. It may be helpful to begin to make such arrangements soon after you have been diagnosed with lupus.
The Social Security Administration considers lupus a legal disability. It is a chronic, autoimmune disease affecting various body parts, including joints, skin, lungs, and kidneys.
Many lupus patients aren't able to do intensive physical work, like waitressing or working in a grocery store. Jobs that involve standing for long periods, like working a cash register, greeting customers, or being a hostess at a restaurant, can be physically tiring as well as rough on the joints.
An autoimmune condition like lupus can cause many symptoms that may make it hard to work. Achy joints, headaches, fatigue, arthritis, sun sensitivity, brain fog, and seizures can all get in the way of a productive day on the job.
Some people with systemic lupus can work for years with few issues. But others need some type of accommodation, such as flexible work hours or more frequent breaks.
Is Autoimmune disease a disability that qualifies for financial help in Australia? Autoimmune disease is a disability that qualifies for financial help in Australia.
Discuss your condition: It's important to keep your employer in the loop regarding your health status. Talk with your supervisor (and if appropriate, your coworkers) about your diagnosis – you may have to educate people about the condition in order to help them understand your need for accommodations.
Systemic lupus erythematosus is a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes a wide range of mild to life-threatening conditions that require hospitalization and critical care.
Lupus can indirectly cause other health problems that interfere with driving a vehicle. I have severe neck pain that started when I was stuck in bed for months due to fatigue and joint pain. This neck pain has prevented me from driving more often than anything else.
Many people described the pain of lupus as similar to having the flu. This means having chills and bone-weary aches throughout your entire body. The pain can be numbing and leave you feeling drained of all energy. “I explain it to others as feeling like the flu: achy joints, muscles, bones.”
Although doctors haven't proven that stress is a direct cause of lupus, it's known to trigger flare-ups in people who already have the disease. Stressful events that can make symptoms worse include: A death in the family.
Complete physical exam. Your doctor will look for rashes and other signs that something is wrong. Blood and urine tests. The antinuclear antibody (ANA) test can show if your immune system is more likely to make the autoantibodies of lupus.
Lupus occurs when the immune system, which normally helps protect the body from infection and disease, attacks its own tissues. This attack causes inflammation, and in some cases permanent tissue damage, which can be widespread – affecting the skin, joints, heart, lung, kidneys, circulating blood cells, and brain.
The Autoimmune Protocol Diet
Foods to avoid include grains, legumes, dairy, processed foods, refined sugars, industrial seed oils, eggs, nuts, seeds, nightshade vegetables, gum, alternative sweeteners, emulsifiers, and food thickeners, said Romano.
People with autoimmune disorders have been described as the population at the most risk of catching diseases. This is due to the way the different autoimmune disorders affect their immune system, and more importantly, to the immunosuppressant drugs used to treat most of these diseases.
Neurodegenerative disorders such as muscular dystrophy. Blood disorders such as sickle cell disease or hemophilia. Immune system disorders, such as HIV/AIDS, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic kidney disease.
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), also known as lupus, is a disease of the immune system, which is estimated to affect more than 20,000 people in Australia and New Zealand.
With age, symptom activity with lupus often declines, but symptoms you already have may grow more severe. The accumulation of damage over years may result in the need for joint replacements or other treatments.
Some lupus victims may be able to work. But if working is not possible for you, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits can help you pay your medical bills. The Maximum SSDI benefit amount per month is $3,627 in 2023. If you are approved for SSDI, then you may be eligible for federal Medicare benefits.
Those symptoms must keep you from working a full time job for over 12 months. In other words, your lupus symptoms must create a total and permanent disability.
Lupus varies in intensity and degree. Some people have a mild case, others moderate and some severe, which tends to be more difficult to treat and control. For people who have a severe flare-up, there is a greater chance that their lupus may be life-threatening.