Everyday Health takes a closer look at lupus. Thanks, Dr. Sanjay Gupta!

News & Advice		Health Matters With Dr. Sanjay Gupta | 2 Comments
		Living With Lupus It's been 12 years since Sara Gorman learned she had the autoimmune disease, and life hasn't been the same since.

So happy to read the Everyday Health article about lupus! Dr. Sanjay Gupta did a fabulous job hitting on the challenges of the disease. I was so pleased to be interviewed. Snippets are below, but you can read the entire article here.


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'Sara Gorman was diagnosed with lupus when she was 26, but she considers herself lucky. That’s because the diagnosis came within a few weeks of her symptoms’ onset.  “It’s highly irregular to get diagnosed in just six weeks,” said Gorman, who was diagnosed 12 years ago. “For most people, it takes months or even years to get diagnosed because the symptoms come and go and don’t clearly point to lupus.”

Gorman’s lupus started with pain that ran from her back to her side, which her primary care doctor diagnosed as a pulled muscle. When the pain became so bad that Gorman couldn’t sleep, her doctor ordered a chest x-ray that showed pleural effusion, a buildup of fluid between the layers of lung tissue. Subsequent visits to a pulmonologist and a rheumatologist led to a blood test that showed a high presence of antinuclear antibodies and the diagnosis that she had a “very solid case of lupus.”

Gorman went on to develop kidney problems, anemia, hair loss, and the “lupus brain fog” that causes memory loss and confusion. Gorman’s doctor put her on steroids and immunosuppressants that helped control her symptoms, but “lupus fatigue” made it impossible to continue her career as a television producer.

At first, Gorman would leave the office early and tried taking naps. “I was so mad I had to do that,” she said. “What 30-year-old takes a nap in the middle of the day?” She worked from home one day a week before switching to a part-time position, but had to retire altogether in 2006.

Gorman has her symptoms under control for the most part. She belongs to a local support group in Alexandria, Virginia, where she says she can be “a person first and a lupus patient second.” She also started a blog, wrote a book about her experiences, and even started an online business selling colorful pill bags for patients embarrassed about taking medications in public. “I thought, let’s take this awful routine that’s full of drudgery and makes us feel old and decrepit, and make it stylish,” she said.'

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