lupus a constellation in the southern hemisphere near Centaurus
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lupus erythematosus A chronic autoimmune disease that is potentially debilitating and sometimes fatal as the immune system attacks the body’s cells and tissue, resulting in inflammation and tissue damage.
Wikipedia
Lupus erythematosus, also called Lupus, is a disease. It is chronic, this means it does not go away. The "Immune system" is made up of little white blood cells in your body that fight off disease. But when Lupus happens, these little white blood cells think that the healthy cells of the body around them are diseased, and end up attacking perfectly healthy parts of the body. Lupus can be deadly. Lupus causes swelling and tissue damage, and can attack any part of the body. It most commonly affects the heart, joints, skin, lungs, blood vessels and the brain/nervous system. There is treatment for Lupus, called immunosuppression, which is medicine that stops the white blood cells from damaging healthy cells for a while, but this medicine wears off, and then the white blood cells go back to hurting healthy parts of the body again. There is no cure for Lupus that stops the white blood cells from ever again attacking healthy parts of the body. But doctors are not giving up on finding some way to cure Lupus.
Lupus takes its name from the Latin word "Lupus", meaning wolf. This is because some people thought that a Lupus-caused rash looks like a rash that wolves get. Other people think that wolves don't really get rashes, and if they did, the rash is covered by the wolf's thick fur, and can't be seen. In the United States alone, there may be 270,000 to 1.5 million (1,500,000) people with Lupus. Worldwide, it is estimated (not known for sure, but a good guess) that over 5 million (5,000,
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