It is convenient for everyone to dismiss all kinds of joint-musculoskeletal pain as rheumatism. The easy part is to relieve the situation with random painkillers and provide a temporary state of well-being until the next troubles occur. Instead of temporary measures, it is necessary to find the cause of the pain and try to solve the problem. It is very easy to disregard the disease and ignore it. However, this convenience can actually turn into gross negligence that threatens the patient's life. I diagnosed a young patient of mine who had been using random painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills-injections-ointments for many years due to rheumatism due to pain and swelling in his joints, and had also been taking stomach ulcer medications and very often vitamin medications under the name of stomach protectors for years so that the drugs he used would not affect his stomach. Due to illness, I felt obliged to write these lines you are reading. The name of the disease is "Systemic Lupus Erythematosus," which is simply called "lupus" in the medical community. The word systemic means that the disease affects all organs and systems. “Erythem” means redness. The word Ertyhematosus describes the redness characteristic of the disease. “Lupus” means wolf. It was given this name because the skin findings on the patients' faces resembled a wolf. The disease is briefly called SLE or lupus, which are the initials of these words. I have been serving our region since 1997. I have diagnosed this disease in patients who sometimes complain of joint pain, kidney disease or bleeding, and sometimes vascular occlusion. The disease presents a clinical picture that is too serious to be treated with simple measures.
Lupus disease is a chronic connective tissue disease that occurs due to immune system disorder. Connective tissue is a repair tissue that connects cells to each other by filling the intercellular spaces, provides the necessary support for the survival of cells, and repairs structural defects. In lupus, a wide variety of disease symptoms occur due to damage to the connective tissue. Periods of recovery and exacerbation of the disease follow each other. Joints, skin, blood, lymph, internal organs, heart, serous membranes (membranes covering the surfaces of the abdominal organs, lungs and heart), in short, it can affect every part of the body. Ha Patients most often complain of pain and swelling in the joints, weakness, fatigue, headache, and unexplained fever. The main complaint that brings the patient to the doctor is joint pain and swelling, which makes life miserable. The patient thinks he has rheumatism. There is redness on the face due to the inflammatory reaction in the walls of the veins. This rash is butterfly shaped. A redness in the shape of butterfly wings is noticeable on both sides, right and left cheeks, including the nose and the body of a butterfly. There is sensitivity to sunlight. There is a circulatory disorder. Fingertips turn purple due to constriction of blood vessels in cold weather or sometimes in stressful situations. This is called "Raynaud's Phenomenon".
Immune system disorder also affects blood cells. Since the body considers its own blood cells to be foreign, red blood cells break down prematurely and anemia occurs. The number of white blood cells decreases and body resistance decreases. When the number of cells that stop bleeding called platelets decreases, the risk of bleeding occurs. The blood clotting system is activated and easy clotting occurs. Since the excessive clotting tendency of the blood causes vascular occlusions, strokes, heart attacks, etc. it could be. Apart from paralysis in the neurological system, involuntary movements (such as moving hands and arms involuntarily) may occur in some patients. Inflammation of the outer lining of the heart (pericarditis), inflammation of the inner lining of the heart (endocarditis), inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), involvement of the coronary vessels feeding the heart, inflammation or blistering of the lung lining, blockage in the lung vessels (pulmonary embolism), and liver dysfunction are other findings that may be seen in patients. . The kidneys are also affected by the disease. Many clinical conditions may occur, including albumin loss in urine, bloody urine, increased urea in the blood, and renal failure requiring dialysis. It is obvious that the patient's psychology may also deteriorate in this noisy clinical picture.
The disease is mostly seen in people between the ages of 20-40. It is many times more common in women than in men. Lupus is not contagious, has nothing to do with cancer, and is not transmitted between spouses. It occurs due to the deterioration of the immune system due to a triggering factor that develops on a genetic basis. against the body's own cells due to immune system impairment It is possible to start a fight. The basis of the treatment is to suppress this struggle in the immune system with drugs. In medicine, there is no disease, only the patient, that is, each disease progresses differently in each patient. In lupus disease, treatment is arranged according to the organ disorders and findings that occur in the patient, but the constant treatment method applied to each patient is the suppression of the immune system.
Dear readers, I wish you a disease-free, problem-free, healthy and happy life.
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