Living with the Wolf

Abstract

Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body's own healthy tissue, most often the skin, connective tissue, and kidneys. But it may attack any part of the body in any number of combinations. It varies so much that no two people with lupus have identical symptoms. There is no known cause or cure, but scientists believe there is a genetic predisposition to the disease. Lupus was given its name in the mid nineteenth century by a French dermatologist, Pierre Cazenave, who thought that the characteristic rashes on the face resembled the results of a wolf bite. The name was later extended to lupus erythematosus (reddish-wolf) because of the redness of the rashes. In 1895, Dr. William Osler from Johns Hopkins Hospital found that in many individuals lupus affected not only the skin, but also other organs of the body. The type of lupus that affects other systems of the body was named systemic lupus erythematosus and the type that affects just the skin discoid lupus erythematosus. Discoid Lupus (a.k.a. Cutaneous lupus) targets the skin. Its trademark is a "butterfly rash," a red or pink rash, sometimes raised, that appears across the face (over the bridge of the nose and across the cheeks). Discoid rashes are also commonly found in this strain of lupus. They are red, scaly, coin-shaped lesions that appear most commonly on the scalp and other skin surfaces that are most often exposed to the sun. These lesions often leave behind scars. And if they appear on the scalp, hair loss may result in the scarred area.