First off, to all of you here who have been with me all this time, thank you.
Second, if my legs didn't hurt me so much I would right now be dancing a jig
because all the news today is good new; great news as a matter of fact. I wish I had been sent to a dermatologist to begin with.
First let me tell you this man is mid to late 60's I think. He has been practicing for over 40 years and is well known through out the state and other states. ( I am getting beligerant in my old age because the first thing I asked him was "Hello, Are you any good? How long have you been practicing? Have you ever seen discoid Lupus?" ) I can tell you the man looked at me differently from the way any other Dr. ever has. I am considering beginning every medical conversation this way. He was very good about it too.
He said I do have Discoid Lupus , but it is one of the mildest cases he has ever seen and he doesn't think this is going to be major problem for the rest of my life. He feels the medications for Lupus would cause more harm with the side effects than the Lupus itself will cause at this mild a stage.
He said most of the junk on my skin is a thing called Discending, dissemanating Keratosis.
It also is caused from sun exposure. In short, severe sunburns during childhood and/or adolescence cause damage to the skin below the surface. At some point in time, usually in the late twenties or early thirties, these surface scars appear because the subsurface is no longer able to produce normal skin cells. He said I have one of the worst cases of this he has seen in all of his practice. There is nothing to be done for it except, like the lupus, stay out of the sun. When in the sun wear the highest sunscreen possible and/or long sleeves.
This man used a magnifying glass and brought in his diagnostician books and showed me pictures of these conditions and then showed me my skin under the glass. The pictures of both the scarring discoid lupus and the keratosis could have been photographed from me. They looked exact in every way in both cases.
This Dr. also told me that in his experience the type of Lupus I have is of slow progression and while there has been some connective tissue damage and it certainly bears watching closely; he feels that this is not going to be a major issue for the rest of my life.
The pain is from the conncetive tissue damage and a so far a mild osteo-arthritis. The lupus is a fact, but not life threatening or even life altering as long as I am careful with the sun.
He believes the redness under stress is the lupus but the fact that it goes away in a matter of hours when I calm down tells him that he is correct in his diagnosis.
The redness on my neck is hormonal. It happens often in women during menopause and sometimes in men with thyroiditis. Especially if they don't take their meds everyday as that causes their hormones to flucuate too. This man feels that as long as my thyroid can be kept stable, everything else will be as well.
I can't tell you how relieved I feel. Just knowing that I will probably not be crippled by this thing is such a relief. Also, I now can be fairly certain that many of the symptoms I have experienced have been from my undermedicated thyroid; as if I hadn't said that myself so many times.
I guess the bottom line is I have Lupus, but not much. I hope this all makes sense to those of you who read it.
May God Bless and Keep Us All
Patience 50
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