Tag Archives: polls

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?

Invisible Illnesses

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I’ve installed a new poll widget on the sidebar, because I thought it would be nice way for people to chime in on subjects without having to make a comment. I really like getting comments, but I know that I don’t always feel like leaving them. I’m pretty good about participating in a simple poll, as long as I don’t have to fill anything out.

For the first poll, I wanted to get some feedback on a subject that comes up often in Lupus discussion groups, and is something I’ve dealt with recently. Lupus and the pain-in-the-butt suite of illnesses, syndromes, and phenomenons that usually go along with lupus are not always easily seen. Most of the problems that my wife has are fairly invisible. This latest problem with her hands was certainly an exception, but usually, other than skin reactions related to her photo-sensitivity, Jenny doesn’t usually look sick.

The only problem with not looking sick is that many people who are not familiar with lupus or other potentially invisible illnesses will often have trouble taking the illness seriously.

I’m just curious how many of you out there with lupus, or whose loved one has lupus, have symptoms related to your lupus that are easily visible and how many have a somewhat invisible illness.

You are still free to make comments as well. I do appreciate them. Also, if you do happen to see an advertisement that interests you, please click it and check it out. It doesn’t cost you anything to do so, and the few pennies I receive do add up and help a lot when my web hosting bills come due.