Yes, lupus can make it hard to move due to common symptoms like joint pain, stiffness, muscle aches, and extreme fatigue. These issues often worsen during a lupus "flare-up" and can significantly impact daily activities.
Lupus can damage nerves in the body by causing inflammation of the nerves or the tissue around the nerves. This nerve damage is sometimes called peripheral neuropathy. The main symptoms are numbness, tingling, and being unable to move a part of your body.
A recent study by Cherry et al [5] has demonstrated that lower limb and foot problems are highly prevalent among people with SLE.
What are lupus flares?
During the course of their disease, approximately 95% of lupus patients will have joint symptoms − either arthritis or arthralgias. Arthritis in lupus is due to inflammation of the lining of the joint (called synovitis) that leads to swelling, tenderness, and stiffness.
Myositis associated with lupus can cause the muscles of your neck, shoulders, arms, upper pelvis, and thighs to weaken. In the early stages, loss of strength in these muscles can make it difficult to rise from a chair or climb stairs.
Some lupus complications can include:
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.
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.
Treating a lupus flare
Walk to End Lupus Now® events provide people affected by lupus and their families with the opportunity to come together for one purpose: ending lupus.
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 and the muscles
Lupus often causes myalgia, or aches and pains in the muscles. Less often, lupus can cause myositis, or inflammation in the muscles — usually in the hips, thighs, shoulders, and upper arms. The most common symptom of myositis is muscle weakness.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body, including the skin, joints, and organs. One often overlooked aspect of lupus is foot pain. If you have lupus, you may experience discomfort, stiffness, and swelling in your feet, which can affect your ability to walk or remain active.
Lupus and Sjogren's syndrome are both autoimmune diseases. Up to 5.5 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with lupus or Sjogren's syndrome. However, Sjogren's syndrome occurs up to three times more than lupus, but one-third of lupus patients also have Sjogren's syndrome.
Some people are born more likely to get lupus. Infections, certain medicines or even sunlight can trigger the condition. There's no cure for lupus, but treatments can help manage symptoms.
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.
Fatigue or extreme tiredness
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.
Berman said there are many factors that contribute to fatigue. Disease activity from lupus itself especially during flare ups can cause fatigue. Other problems that can be caused by lupus, such as anemia may also be a factor in fatigue.
Living with lupus and maintaining full-time employment can be challenging. but that does not necessarily mean people with lupus have to stop working. Since common symptoms of lupus include fatigue and joint pain, they may have to change the way they work.
The CNS manifestations of SLE are diverse and have a broad spectrum of severity and prognostic implications. 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.
The medicines used most often to manage lupus include:
It can be confused with other arthritic and painful conditions: Lupus can cause joint pain, swelling and stiffness like rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia. It can masquerade as thyroid disease: Fatigue, weight changes and mood swings are common in both lupus and thyroid disorders.
Lupus and its treatments can impair mental & emotional health. 80-90% of people with lupus. Neuropsychiatric lupus describes feelings of depression, headaches, and lupus fog — trouble thinking or remembering due to lupus. 25% of lupus patients experience major depression and 37% have major anxiety, research shows.