Before thinking about the symptoms of lupus in women you should know that this is a serious condition regardless of gender or age.
Although the symptoms are similar in case of men and women, the condition is more common in case of women and there are some distinctive symptoms.
Women’s lupus symptoms
The truth is that the symptoms vary from one person to the other. While some people have only a few symptoms, others could have more. Another thing to know is that the symptoms could come and go. Lupus is known to be a condition of flares and remissions. This means that the patients feel bad for a while and then they feel better.
General ill feeling and specific signs
The more common signs of lupus in women include joint stiffness and pain that could be accompanied by swelling, muscle aches, weakness, pain, fever with no apparent cause, fatigue, tiredness, a rash in the shape of a butterfly across the cheeks and nose, weight fluctuation, and rashes on the skin.
Confusing symptoms
Some other symptoms of lupus in women include anemia, kidney problems with no apparent cause, trouble with thinking, confusion, memory problems, chest pain during deep breaths, hair loss, light or sun sensitivity and pale or purple toes or fingers because of stress or cold.
There are also some less common women’s lupus signs. Such signs include blood clots, sores in the nose or mouth, seizures, severe headache, not being able to judge reality, strokes, a feeling of sadness and irritated or dry eyes.
The truth about the symptoms of lupus in women is that since there are so many different possible symptoms, it is easy to misdiagnose the problem.
This is why the authorities came up with a list of different symptoms. In order for a patient to be diagnosed with lupus she must have at least four of them.
11 warning signs
The eleven warning signs of lupus in women include butterfly shaped rash, sores in the mouth, ulcers, kidney disease, scaly rashes on the body, sensitivity to light, neurological disorders like seizures, anemia or poor circulation, positive blood tests, swollen joints, inflammation of the heart and lungs and a positive result of the antinuclear antibody test.
Light sensitivity
The most common symptoms of lupus in women are considered sensitivity to light and swollen joints. Because of the pain, it is possible that the affected women think that they suffer from arthritis. Nonetheless the sensitivity to light clearly suggests that it is lupus that we are referring to.
Lupus flares
If women have the women’s lupus warning signs and they spend some time in the sun they could notice rash on the hands, face and chest. The symptoms are also called lupus flares. The flares consist of weight gain, fever, foamy urine, oral ulcers, depression, hair loss, memory loss and seizures.
As it has been mentioned before, the symptoms of lupus in women are something like the symptoms that men notice, but still there is a slight difference. Women could notice a wider range of symptoms than the male patients.
