Some two-thirds of lupus patients complain of having arthritis in their feet. Additionally, tenosynovitis and tendonitis often coexist, leading to widespread foot and ankle pain, causing considerable disability.
A small number of people with lupus have joint hypermobility. This is when joints are very flexible. It can lead to problems such as joint pain, poor balance and in rare cases dislocation – when a joint pops out of place. Pain from muscles and joints may be due to a condition called fibromyalgia.
Muscle and joint pain.
You may experience pain and stiffness, with or without swelling. This affects most people with lupus. Common areas for muscle pain and swelling include the neck, thighs, shoulders, and upper arms.
Lupus can inflame the kidneys, causing permanent damage. This can lead to swelling in the legs and high blood pressure. Your doctor will look for protein or blood cells in your urine, which are signs of kidney damage.
“Not every patient with lupus has that degree of severity but when you have your immune system attacking your kidneys or your heart or your lungs, that can be life threatening.” At one point Williams lost 50 percent of her muscle mass and was unable to even move, confined to a wheelchair.
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.”
Class 4, or diffuse lupus nephritis
Class 4 involves damage to more than half of the glomerulus. A person will have high blood pressure. They may require dialysis as kidney function begins to worsen.
With close follow-up and treatment, 80-90% of people with lupus can expect to live a normal life span. It is true that medical science has not yet developed a method for curing lupus, and some people do die from the disease. However, for the majority of people living with the disease today, it will not be fatal.
Some people with lupus develop myositis, an inflammation of the skeletal muscles that causes weakness and loss of strength. Lupus myositis often affects the muscles of your neck, pelvis, thighs, shoulders and upper arms; difficulty in climbing stairs and getting up from a chair are early symptoms.
Kidneys About one half of people with lupus experience kidney involvement, and the kidney has become the most extensively studied organ affected by lupus.
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. Since these symptoms aren't visible, the people around you may have trouble understanding how you feel.
When lupus is advanced or severe, it can disable the individual. The symptoms include malaise, low mental and physical capacity, fever, severe joint aches that limit mobility, severe and frequent exhaustion, and involuntary weight loss.
Inflammation: Any time your body is experiencing excess inflammation, such as during a lupus flare, you will feel more tired. Anemia: Anemia occurs when your red blood cell count gets low. This means that the amount of oxygen going to your organs will decrease, which can increase your level of fatigue.
Lupus causes inflammation throughout the body, which can cause problems in organs, including: Kidney damage that can lead to changes in kidney function, including kidney failure. This is called lupus nephritis. Seizures and memory problems due to changes in the brain and central nervous system.
Lupus nephritis tends to develop within 5 years of the appearance of initial lupus symptoms. The condition affects about 40% of people who have SLE and can lead to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) in 22% of patients over a period of 15 years.
Severe abdominal pain. Chest pain or shortness of breath. Seizures. New onset of a fever or if your fever is much higher than usual.
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.
According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), lupus does qualify as a disability if all conditions are met. Your lupus must affect two or more organs or body systems with severe symptoms in at least one.
Although chemotherapy drugs can be used to treat lupus and cancer, lupus is not cancer. For some patients whose kidneys or central nervous systems are affected by lupus, a type of drug called an immunosuppressive may be used.
Common symptoms that indicate a flare are: Ongoing fever not due to an infection. Painful, swollen joints. An increase in fatigue.
Lupus often causes skin rashes, arthritis, mouth sores, sun sensitivity, hair loss, or kidney problems, but these symptoms don't show up in MS. Even when lupus affects your nervous system, its most common symptoms are migraine, personality changes, seizures, or stroke, but these aren't typical for MS.