Category Archives: Symptoms

Sjögren’s Syndrome

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Sjögren’s syndrome, pronounced (SHOW-grins), is an autoimmune disease that features inflammation of the glands that produce tears, which leads to dryness in the eyes, and inflammation of the glands that produce the saliva in the mouth, which leads to dryness in the mouth and lips. It is one of the more common autoimmune disorders and is thought to affect over four million individuals in the United States alone.

You can learn more about Sjögren’s syndrome by visiting The Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation, which was founded in 1983 and “provides patients practical information and coping strategies that minimize the effects of Sjögren’s syndrome.” The foundation’s website has a great deal of information, even though it doesn’t appear to have been updated recently. I’m not sure if it is even still an active organization, but I will send them an email and see if anyone is still home. Nonetheless, the site has a good amount of information.

I would recommend that you first visit the Sjögren’s information page at the Lupus Foundation of America for more information.

My wife has just recently started taking Evoxac, which is a medication for Sjogrens. It’s pretty early to tell if it’s making any difference, but we have had an odd episode where she woke up coughing from too much saliva, which was a little scary.

The current poll is set to end on March 3, so if you haven’t participated, there is still time.

Raynaud’s Phenomenon

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Raynaud’s Phenomenon, pronounced (ray-NOSE), is a disorder where spasms in your blood vessels can restrict blood flow to your extremities, usually your hands. This manifests itself with discoloration of the hands and fingers, with severe cases causing a bluing of the fingertips. This lack of blood flow makes your extremities feel painfully cold.

Raynaud’s can be an early indicator of a number of connective tissue illnesses, including lupus. My wife has Raynaud’s and so does another member of her family. Strangely enough, I think I have it as well, to a lesser degree.

Those with Raynaud’s Phenomenon should avoid smoking, cold temperatures, intense vibrations, and emotional stress, so don’t argue with someone on a Winter train ride in France.

In our house, we make sure we have warm socks, and if it gets really bad, we just soak our hands or feet in some warm water. We also bought one of those parafin wax skin treatment machines. My wife likes it a lot, and she says it does help, but it’s a bit of a pain to use it.

Lupus Diagnosis: Poll Results

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I wanted to talk briefly about the results of the last poll, At what age were you first diagnosed with lupus? Now I realize that these polls don’t give any significant data, but it’s still interesting to talk about them. Here are the results in order of the number of responses.

  • Thirties 40%
  • Twenties 28%
  • Forties 16%
  • Under twenty 14%
  • Fifties 2 %

There were choices for sixties and above but they were not chosen.

My wife was diagnosed quite early, but the results show that readers have had a different experience. If you look at the poll, you can see that over two-thirds of those who responded were diagnosed in their twenties or thirties. I wonder if that has to do the actual onset of the illness or the difficulty in getting a firm diagnosis? Does it have something to do with having children, or maybe the fact that those two decades are commonly the childbearing years? How long did it take to get the diagnosis from the time when the person started to notice symptoms?

Lupus: Not so invisibile after all

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I wanted to discuss the results of the last poll about the visibility of lupus symptoms.

  • 37% indicated that they sometimes have noticeable symptoms.
  • 32% of those polled said that nobody would guess that they have an illness.
  • 24% voted that they hide their symptoms very well.
  • 8% of those who responded have obvious symptoms.

Sometimes I wonder if lupus would be treated differently if it had more visible symptoms?