A Friend Has Lupus

Tweet Weeks ago I greeted a friend of mine because it was her birthday. I did a follow up question to ask if she plans to have a second baby (her little boy same age as my 2-yr old daughter). I received a surprising reply that she can't think of that at the moment because she discovered something and need to recover from that. I was astounded.

She shared that she has Lupus. Prior to her talking about it I was oblivious to what it was. The more I read about it, the more aware I become. It was a coincidence that the other day, there was a newspaper coverage of Lupus Awareness day where women walked the streets of KL with umbrellas.

The basic explanation is that this affects mostly women (my age!!!) and something inside your body starts to attack your immune system. A more detailed explanation: Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system becomes hyperactive and attacks normal, healthy tissue. When the body's immune system is operating normally it produces antibodies to fight viruses and bacteria and other antigens. Lupus makes the antibodies created unable to differentiate between antigens and healthy tissue causing the antibodies to attack healthy tissue.

This shocked me. Made me panic. Aware of the many possibilities of life.

While on a flight back from Manila, I saw this article on the plane where someone discovered a tea which can help lupus patients. Okay, maybe it was not an article but more of an advertorial. However, I still wanted to share it with my friend and would like to share it here. I don't know if it can resolve it, but heck I would like to contribute as much as I can should I find testimonials of products that can help patients.