Migraine—Not A Symptom of SLE - Systemic Lupus Erythematosus or commonly termed Lupus

by Art, August 31st, 2011


Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, SLE, or commonly termed Lupus, is an autoimmune condition which causes inflammation of the body’s organs like kidneys, brain, skin, joints and other tissue groups. This is a chronic condition it is more common among women than men. In terms of demographics, Lupus is diagnosed more commonly among African-Americans and Asians. The cause of SLE is still unknown but some studies have linked it to the presence of Lupus Antibodies.

For the past decades, many physicians believe that headaches, more specifically migraines, are symptoms of this condition. However, researches from Greece proved otherwise. In their latest study linking migraine attacks to diagnosis of lupus, little connection was observed. According to them, migraines should be treated as a separate condition and should not be considered as a symptom of lupus. Previous studies, according to them, may have suffered from methodological errors and these errors led most physicians to consider migraine attacks as something that usually come with the autoimmune disease.

Researchers from Athens Naval Hospital claimed that migraines usually result to the psychological and physical stress that lupus patient’s experience. In the current study, the group of Dr. Mitsikostas made use of three study groups—patients with lupus, control/healthy patients and patients with MS or multiple sclerosis, another autoimmune disease. These groups kept headache diaries for one year.

http://www.healblog.net/health-news/migraine%E2%80%94not-a-symptom-of-sle/