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Should I be tested for lupus or am I overthinking it?
I work in healthcare managing patient reports so I see a lot of diagnosis. Lately I've been wondering if I should be checked for lupus. My reasoning is that my Aunt has lupus, but when I looked it up it said it's not really genetic, but does show signs of running in families.
I was looking at the symptoms and feel like I have a lot of them.
The first one is fatigue, I'm always super tired and can't explain why. I can sleep for 10+ hours and still be exhausted and want to go back to sleep. I frequently take naps half way through the day. I usually just figure it's because I work a lot and go to school too so I'm more stressed than usual.
Joint pain, stiffness,and swelling: Sometimes my knees hurt so badly I can't walk. I've had x-rays done for this before and they came back normal so I just gave up on figuring out why and chalked it up to maybe needing to exercise more. My back and neck also hurt at varying degrees, but only occasionally. Swelling isn't something I've experienced.
Raynaud's syndrome: I basically think I have this. People always tell me I feel very cold to the touch and my skin gets blue sometimes.
Chest pain/heart problems: I've had this before also at varying degrees. I was even tested for it with a month long heart monitor and it was found that I have frequent sinus tachycardia, but that considering my healthy weight and young age they didn't think much of it.
Lung Pain (pleurisy): I've had this before too, but only once and it's been about a year since then.
Sensitivity to light: I've been photosensitive my entire life and even things like overhead lights bother me and give me headaches.
Mouth sores: I get these about once a month and have had three at a time before that hurt so bad I couldn't eat.
Weight loss: I've always been very skinny under 90 pounds, but I'm also only 5ft tall. My doctors always try to focus on gaining weight, but I also don't eat as much as I really should.
The other symptoms I don't have are: a face rash, unexplained fever, hair loss, and a reduced white blood cell count (as far as I know and I've had my blood drawn twice in the last two years for hyperthyroid tests and heart tests). My aunt doesn't have a face rash so I feel like that part isn't in all cases.
I don't know whether I should bother getting tested or not. I don't want to be one of those people who works in medical and self diagnoses themselves. I also don't want to attribute some pretty general symptoms to something like Lupus.
I know I should get a medical professional's opinion, but until I find a doctor (I just moved) I was wondering what a stranger's opinion on this might be?
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It is not uncommon for people in the healthcare field to be hypersensitive to what others might think are minor aches and pains. Doctors, Nurses, Paramedics and EMT's come in contact with a variety of sick people and are always concerned they have caught some variant of a disease. There are 11 symptoms of Lupus, you have some but not all. Could you be suffering some pre-lupus symptoms? That is a question for a doctor to answer.
Family doctors are not always looking for the pickle in the herring barrel. They normally just treat what the see unless we the patient give them reason to look further.
There is Lupus in your family it is not known to me a genetic disease but it has not been ruled out either. What I suggest is you schedule a full physical with your doctor and tell the doctor all of your symptoms and ask to be tested for Lupus.
Should your doctor say you don't have Lupus and the testing is unnecessary or if the test come back negative you can seek a second opinion from a doctor who does not know you.
You should also go to the following URL for more information on Lupus:
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