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February 20, 2008 at 10:22 AMComments: 4 Faves: 0

Is Lupus Fatal?

By Smarty More Blogs by This Author

Lupus is an autoimmune disorder; it's not cancer, and it's not HIV. Lupus is a misunderstood disease, so if you or a loved one has recently been diagnosed with lupus, you might be afraid or confused. Be sure to talk to your health practitioner if you have questions.

Is Lupus Fatal?

Not usually. 80-90% of people with lupus will live a normal lifespan. However, since there are varying degrees of severity of lupus, some people may have their lifespan reduced. The most common causes of death that may be traced to lupus are kidney failure, infection, and heart disease. However, in most cases, lupus is not life-threatening.

Is There a Cure for Lupus?

Unfortunately, there is no cure for lupus. However, there are many treatment strategies that can effectively manage symptoms .

Is Lupus the Same as Multiple Sclerosis?

No, although both are autoimmune diseases, Lupus and MS are very different conditions. Sometimes lupus can imitate the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, however.

How Dangerous Is Lupus for Children?

Lupus research and treatment has come a long way recently. The prognosis for children is usually good, although not as good as that for adults.

Who Gets Lupus?

  • 9 out of 10 sufferers are female.
  • Lupus is more common in African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. However, anyone of any ethnic background can get lupus.
  • Lupus is usually diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 45.
  • It's thought that a predisposition for the disease is inherited genetically, and lupus itself is triggered by an environmental factor in a person with a predisposition. Possible triggers are viruses, medications, or Epstein-Barr virus.

Is Lupus Contagious?

No, lupus is never contagious. It's a result of the person's immune system attacking the body's own tissues, not from a bacteria or virus.

What Is the Link Between Lupus and Osteoporosis?

  • Women with lupus are almost five times more likely to fracture a bone than women without lupus due to osteoporosis.
  • Lupus may cause bone loss directly.
  • Often, medications used to treat lupus can cause major bone loss.
  • Additionally, lupus causes fatigue, which may result in inactivity, which can lead to bone loss.
  • If you have lupus, it's important to monitor your bone health and live an active, healthy lifestyle. Make sure you are getting enough calcium and exercise to maintain healthy bones.

What Treatments Are Available for Lupus?

Many medications are available for treatment of lupus, although these may come with unpleasant side effects. The following tips will help you stay healthy:

  • Stay Active: Even if you are tired, you should try to get some exercise each day.
  • Eat a Healthy Diet: Fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and omega-3 fatty acids found in flax seeds and fish oil are thought to help people who suffer from lupus.
  • Don't Smoke or Abuse Alcohol: Both of these are harmful for the body and can be especially bad for lupus sufferers.


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  • i would like to know the life span of a 56 years old black female that has had triple by pass and has scared lung and is on oxygen.and Her blood count is not right and she has to have
    transfusens 5 days outthe month until .
    the medication shes on is not working anymore.

  • Cammie, since we are not a medical site, we are unable to offer medical advice. We suggest you ask your health care professional your questions. We certainly wish you well.

  • When taking an autoimmune suppressant for lupus treatment, is there a higher likihood of contagious disease (esp. when one works with environment)?

  • Hello,rnrnAfter my experiences and research during an urban outbreak, I believe this airborne pathogen, known to cause inflammation and "mimic" autoimmune diseases, is the cause of some, if not all, cases of lupus.rnrnI’d like to share information I learned during my workplace’s outbreak of an underdiagnosed airborne infectious disease that can cause malignancies, precancerous conditions, rheumatological diseases, connective tissue diseases, heart disease, autoimmune symptoms, inflammation in any organ/tissue, seizures, migraines, mood swings, hallucinations, etc. and is often undiagnosed/misdiagnosed in immunocompetent people. 80-90+% of people in some areas have been infected, and it can lay dormant for up to 40 years in the lungs and/or adrenals.rn rnMy coworkers and I, all immunocompetent, got Disseminated Histoplasmosis in Dallas-Fort Worth from roosting bats, the most numerous non-human mammal in the U.S., that shed the fungus in their feces. The doctors said we couldn’t possibly have it, since we all had intact immune systems. The doctors were wrong. Healthy people can get it, too, with widely varying symptoms. And we did not develop immunity over time. We'd get better and then progressively worse, relapsing periodically and concurrently every year.rn rnMore than 100 outbreaks have occurred in the U.S. since 1938, and those are just the ones that were figured out, since people go to different doctors. One outbreak was over 100,000 victims in Indianapolis. rnrnIt’s known to cause hematological malignancies, and some doctors claim their leukemia patients go into remission when given antifungal. My friend in another state who died from lupus lived across the street from a bat colony. An acquaintance with alopecia universalis and whose mother had degenerative brain disorder has bat houses on their property.rnrnThere's too much smoke for there not to be at least a little fire.rnrnResearchers claim the subacute type is more common than believed. It’s known to at least “mimic” autoimmune diseases and cancer and known to give false-positives in PET scans. But no one diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or cancer is screened for it. In fact, at least one NIH paper states explicitly that all patients diagnosed with sarcoidosis be tested for it, but most, if not all, are not. Other doctors are claiming sarcoidosis IS disseminated histoplasmosis. rnrnWhat if this infection, that made me and my coworkers so ill, isn't rare in immunocompetent people? What if just the diagnosis is rare, since most doctors apparently ignore it? Especially since online documents erroneously state it’s not zoonotic.rnrnOlder documents state people who spend a lot of time in a building with roosting bats, in caves, working as landscapers, construction workers, pest control workers, etc. are known to get Disseminated Histoplasmosis, but the info appears to have been lost, for the most part. And now bat conservationists encourage people to leave bats in buildings/homes. What a terrible mistake they’ve made.rnrnThis pathogen parasitizes the reticuloendothelial system/invades macrophages, can infect and affect the lymphatic system and all tissues/organs, causes inflammation, granulomas, and idiopathic (unknown cause) diseases and conditions, including hematological malignancies, autoimmune symptoms, myelitis, myositis, vasculitis, panniculitis, dysplasia, hyperplasia, etc. It causes hypervascularization, calcifications, sclerosis, fibrosis, necrosis, eosinophilia, leukopenia, anemia, neutrophilia, pancytopenia, thrombocytopenia, hypoglycemia, cysts, abscesses, polyps, stenosis, perforations, GI problems, hepatitis, focal neurologic deficits, etc. rnrnMany diseases it might cause are comorbid with other diseases it might cause, for example depression/anxiety/MS linked to Crohn’s.rnrnThe fungus is an Oxygenale and therefore consumes collagen. It’s known to cause connective tissue diseases (Myxomatous degeneration?), rheumatological conditions, seizures, and mental illness. Fungal hyphae carry an electrical charge and align under a current. It causes RNA/DNA damage. It’s known to cause delusions, wild mood swings (pseudobulbar affect?), and hallucinations. It’s most potent in female lactating bats, because the fungus likes sugar (lactose) and nitrogen (amino acids, protein, neurotransmitters?). What about female lactating humans…postpartum psychosis (and don’t some of these poor women also have trouble swallowing)? The bats give birth late spring/summer, and I noticed suicide rates spike in late spring/early summer. It’s known to cause retinal detachment, and retinal detachments are known to peak around June-July/in hot weather. A map of mental distress and some diseases appear to almost perfectly overlay a map of Histoplasmosis. Johns Hopkins linked autism to an immune response in the womb. Alzheimer’s was linked to hypoglycemia, which can be caused by chronic CNS histoplasmosis. The bats eat moths, which are attracted to blue and white city lights that simulate the moon the moths use to navigate. Bats feed up to 500 feet in the air and six miles away in any direction from their roost, but not when it’s raining or when the temperature is less than approximately 56° F. The fungus can grow in bird feces, but birds don’t carry it because their body temperature is too high, killing the fungus.rn rnI believe the “side effects” of Haldol (leukopenia and MS symptoms) might not always be side effects but just more symptoms of Disseminated Histoplasmosis, since it causes leukopenia and MS symptoms. What about the unknown reason why beta receptor blockers cause tardive dyskinesia? The tinnitus, photophobia, psychosis “caused” by Cipro? Hypersexuality and leukemia “caused” by Abilify? Humira linked to lymphoma, leukemia and melanoma in children? Disseminated Histoplasmosis is known to cause enteropathy, so could some people thought to have nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug enteropathy have it and taking NSAIDs for the pain/inflammation it causes, and the NSAIDs aren’t the actual culprit?rn rnFrom my experience, I learned that NO doctor, at least in DFW, will suspect subacute and/or progressive disseminated histoplasmosis in immunocompetent people. Some doctors, at least the ones I went to, will actually REFUSE to test for it, even when told someone and their coworkers have all the symptoms and spend a lot of time in a building with bats in the ceiling. Victims will be accused of hypochondriasis. In fact, the first doctor to diagnose me was a pulmonologist, and the only reason he examined me was to try to prove that I didn’t have it, when I really did. No doctor I went to realized bats carry the fungus. And NO doctor I went to in DFW, even infectious disease “experts,” understand the DISSEMINATED form, just the pulmonary form, and the only test that will be done by many doctors before they diagnose people as NOT having it is an X-ray, even though at least 40-70% of victims will have NO sign of it on a lung X-ray. It OFTEN gives false-negatives in lab tests (some people are correctly diagnosed only during an autopsy after obtaining negative test results) and cultures may not show growth until after 6-12 weeks of incubation (but some labs report results after 2 weeks). rn rnOne disease of unknown cause that could be caused by Disseminated Histoplasmosis: I suspect, based on my and my coworker’s symptoms (during our “rare” infectious disease outbreak) and my research, that interstitial cystitis and its comorbid conditions can be caused by disseminated histoplasmosis, which causes inflammation throughout the body, causes “autoimmune” symptoms, and is not as rare as believed. I read that “interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the submucosal and muscular layers of the bladder, and the cause is currently unknown. Some people with IC have been diagnosed with other conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, allergies, and Sjogren’s syndrome, which raises the possibility that interstitial cystitis may be caused by mechanisms that cause these other conditions. In addition, men with IC are frequently diagnosed as having chronic nonbacterial prostatitis, and there is an extensive overlap of symptoms and treatment between the two conditions, leading researchers to posit that the conditions may share the same etiology and pathology.” Sounds like Disseminated Histoplasmosis, doesn’t it?rn rnMy coworkers and I were always most ill around April/May/June, presumably since the Mexican Free-tail bats gave birth in Texas during May (and the fungus was most potent), and fall/Thanksgiving to December, for some unknown reason (maybe migrating bats from the north?). We had GI problems, liver problems, weird rashes (erythema nodosum, erythema multiforme, erythema annulare, etc.), plantar fasciitis, etc., and I had swollen lymph nodes, hives, lesions, abdominal aura, and started getting migraines and plantar fasciitis in the building, and I haven’t had them since I left. It gave me temporary fecal incontinence, seizures, dark blood from my intestines, tinnitus, nystagmus, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, what felt like burning skin, various aches and pains (some felt like pin pricks and pinches), tingling, tremors, "explosions" like fireworks in my head while sleeping, temporary blindness, and chronic spontaneous “orgasms”/convulsions. Suddenly I was allergic to Comice pears (latex fruit allergy or oral allergy syndrome?). I had insomnia (presumably from the fungus acidifying the blood, releasing adrenaline) and parasomnias. I suddenly had symptoms of several inflammatory/autoimmune diseases, including Fibromyalgia, Sarcoidosis, ALS, MS, Sjogren’s syndrome, etc. that have disappeared since leaving the area and taking nothing but Itraconazole antifungal.rn rnNo one, including doctors (we all went to different ones), could figure out what was wrong with us, and I was being killed by my doctor, who mistakenly refused to believe I had it and gave me progressively higher and higher doses of Prednisone (at least 2 years after I already had Disseminated Histoplasmosis) after a positive ANA titer, until I miraculously remembered that a visiting man once told my elementary school class that bats CARRY histoplasmosis….so much of it that they evolved to deal with the photophobia and tinnitus it causes by hunting at night by echolocation. There’s a lot more. I wrote a book about my experience with Disseminated Histoplasmosis called “Batsh#t Crazy,” because bats shed the fungus in their feces and it causes delusions and hallucinations, I suspect by the sclerotia fungal mycelia can form emitting hallucinogens (like psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine) along with inflammation in the CNS. (Schizophrenics have 2X of a chemical associated with yeast, part of the fungal life cycle.)rn rnThank you for your time,rn rnSusan McIntyrernrnP.S. Doesn’t this infection share all the same symptoms with Gulf War Syndrome?rn

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