25 persons per year for Lupus diagnosis

Approximately 25 persons in Barbados are being diagnosed with Lupus on an annual basis, according to a study on this disease.

This was revealed by the President of The Hope Foundation, Shelley Weir, who spoke with The Barbados Advocate prior to the start of the Annual Seminar for Newly Diagnosed Patients at the Accra Beach Hotel and Spa yesterday.

She said that is was via this seminar, that they have been hosting for the last 25 years of their existence, which allows them to find out exactly how many persons in Barbados are living with this illness.

“It was through this seminar that we had a clear indication that the number of persons being diagnosed per year was actually more than we had originally thought. At first we were saying that there were eight persons per year being diagnosed, and through these seminars, we were seeing 16 persons and more, and now through a Lupus study being done, we know that approximately 25 persons are being diagnosed per year.”

Furthermore, 90 per cent of these cases would be female, and their diagnosis would come during their most profitable and fruitful years, she said.

“As with anywhere else in the world, 90 per cent of the cases diagnosed would be female, and they are usually diagnosed in the most productive and reproductive years, so the most popular age range for Lupus diagnosis is between 16 and 45 years old.”
She said that there is no evidence to show why this illness tends to affect women more than it does men; however, she also wanted to make it clear that men can also be susceptible to this illness.

Weir said that it is still not clear how persons get Lupus. “

It is not hereditary. It is not contagious. So we do not know who would get Lupus, which is why it is so important to have awareness. There are 11 criteria, and if you are saying yes to at least three of them, then you should be investigated for Lupus.”

She said some of these symptoms include joint pain, low grade fevers that can sometimes last more than two weeks,  hair loss, weight loss and loss of appetite, while some of the more clinical signs would be protein in the urine, pleurisy and the classical sign for Lupus is the butterfly rash, which starts on the bridge of the nose and spreads to the cheeks.

However, persons must not use the absence of this rash as an indicator that they do not have Lupus, since this only occurs in about a half of diagnosed patients.

“Only 50 per cent of the cases will get that rash. We always know that we have to know more about Lupus than just waiting for that rash to appear because in some patients –  50 per cent of the patients that rash would not appear.”

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