Hello Lisa.....i have had a long journey with lupus. But i now have my life back. Please visit my website for my story. {{{HUGS}}}...Pam

Dear Pam,

I've had lupus all my life, and remission is really great. And you must feel great after the last seventeen years to feel so much better.

There are many supplements that are great for our bodies, that improve our health, and our immune systems. And the medications that may have saved your life in prior years, very definitely, have also depleted your body of many things, and it is natural to get such a "high" when your cells are finally brought back in balance and not being attacked by your own bodies immune system. Feeling well for a whole year is really a great feeling. I know.

So,I can share in your happiness that you are in remission. But, from past experience, I wouldn't go totally off the anti-depressants. For when you do have another acute flare up, if you are not already on a base level of brain medications that keep your serotonin levels high enough, you may be in a lot of trouble. I can tell you this from experience. I tried totally withdrawing from meds that were helping to maintain my neurotransmitters, and when I did go into acute flare up, I was fried toast. It scared the hell out of my doctors, and it took a lot of meds at a very high level and a lot of time to get my brain chemistry back to functioning. And in the process, I lost my job.

So I can rejoice that you are in remission, but a disease as lupus acts as a retrovirus. And although you can feel great during a remission, it can strike again with a vengence. My acute flares, when I had remissions, were any where from 2 to 3 years apart, but the disease was still there. And no matter what supplements I took, and no matter how well I ate, there was nothing I could ingest that would prevent these flares.

Because I have a disease that is genetically predipostioned in my case, even though I did not know it until age 40. And with all the knowledge you now have about your disease from living with it for 17 years consciously, I bet if you looked back at the lineage in your family, even though lupus was not the "cause of death" listed , you will find that it was probably the underlying cause for illness in a few cases as you do your family history. And becomes evident when you research the health problems, especially in males for the ten years preceding death if they were so lucky.

And it should also be something that you make sure any of your children or siblings' children know about. Even though lupus is very hard to spot in children, it definety is there in many cases. I know this from both personal experienc and having watched one of my own children who has the disease as well. And only the trained eye of someone living with them can put the dots together, it so insidious in the young. But if you have sons, and they do become ill in middle age when their testosterone levels lower and estrogen rises, they can be treated with steroids rather than antibiotics. The difference between these two meds is lifesaving. I had an uncle who died of sudden kidney failure. And he himself was a doctor.(It was unfortunate that he was so estranged from his family that he probably never knew he had a sister with probable lupus, as it was defined years ago when the only positive identification could be made in autopsy. Other relatives, male, died of lung or heart ailments that were preceded by 10 years of textbook lupus problems, but their doctors never saw it, understood it, or treated it correctly in that day and age. And in not managing their life styles around the disease and cooperatiing with it, and not having steroids, they died young. It was also at a time when lupus was thought of as a very rare disease that only turned up in certain racial grouping. So it was overlooked in their cases.

But we now have life prolonging drugs that do help people. Charles Kuralt, died of lung or heart problems, but the underlying cause was lupus. And he sure was very productive in late middle age.

I am happy that you are in remission, but one year of feeling great should not make you any less attentive to your energy levels, and the monitoring of your disease that is in remission. And when you do go into flare up, these same nutritional supplements may make the flare ups less intense for you. Which is great. Water soluable suppliments are absorbed by a body that needs them, and the rest are just flushed out with our urine. So I'd just check with your doctors, and let them know what suppliments you are taking. If there is any component that is not water soluable and could build up in your system and then cause any problems for starting on meds when you are in flare up, it would be good to know. And it is imperative for your doctor to know now, because even though these are nutritional suppliments, they can contain certain things that can interact with meds and cause possible problems. And you don't need to have any toxic drug reactions when you do go into your next flare up. Lupus is bad enough.

Good luck!

Keep feeling well, but please, don't go totally off your antidepressants, keep them at a base level, or it take a long time for them to take effect when you have your next flare up. It is bad enought to loose your physical health, but to loose your mental health as well is even more tragic if you can take preventative action now to not have this problem arise in the future. Your life may depend on it.

Thanks Cath for your caring comments. I am backing off antidepressants under the care of a doctor....don't worry! I'm gonna be fine!!!...Pam