Hi I am from over at the pain management board and have 2 friends with Lupus and was just researching to know more about it so I can be more supportive to their problems.
I just recently seen on court TV that a close friend of Anna Nicole Smith's said she had Lupus but never wanted her fans to know. Some jerk, maybe a doc was telling the interviewer that the methadone Anna was taking absolutly wasnt for Lupus, the only meds for Lupus is steroids. Now my friends have taken differnet narcotic meds at times because they have terrible pain in their joints I think and I know one of them took methadone at one time. I cant get ahold of my friends now they are out of town, does anyone here know if methadone is used sometimes for the pain associated with the lupus? I wanted to tell that guy on tv off but needed to know if I was right first. Thanks ahead of time Have a nice night.:angel: :wave:

Hi, there. I was watching tv a couple of nights ago and I heard one of Anna's friends say that she had told him and one other person that she had Lupus and wanted it to be kept a secret. That got me to wondering... if one had an undiagnosed (or secret) case of Lupus that had contributed to one's death, what indications would there be during an autopsy of this disease? If it was not publicly known that a person had Lupus, could that be diagnosed after death? Maybe I will do some snooping on the internet to find out. If she did have Lupus, considering the fact that she just had a baby 5 months ago, it would make me wonder if the pregnancy complicated her disease or made her flare. This is all speculation on my part, of course.

Methadone is a pretty strong narcotic. While I do take narcotics for pain relief, I can't imagine a reputable doctor prescribing anything that strong. Simply because it is a chronic disease so you are talking about long term use. I currently take Vicodin (only on really bad days) and ultram for pain. The steroids would be used to treat the disease, not necessarily the pain.

I am not sure what would show up on the autopsy, but I would suppose it would possibly if she was in a flare. The recent pregnancy could definately cause a flare. However, from the reports she was having a very high fever. While lupus will and does commonly cause fever it is usually a low grade fever. Generally no more than 101.

More than likely if she actually did have lupus, she probably had some heart problems and the constant overmedicating weakened it even more.

Erin