Airdale Hospital staff to raise awareness of immune illness (From Keighley News)
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Airdale Hospital staff to raise awareness of immune illness
6:00am Saturday 27th October 2012 in News
Promoting the Lupus awareness campaign at Airedale Hospital are, from left, consultant Dr Hanu Reddy, rheumatology consultant Dr Shabina Sultan, clinical nurse specialist Kelly Hayes-Head and Linda Sigsworth, lead rheumatology nurse
Rheumatology consultants at Airedale Hospital have joined a national campaign to make people more aware of an immune system illness.
They want people to know about lupus, and have put together an information display for staff, patients and visitors.
GPs and other health professionals can find it difficult to recognise the illness, as it features symptoms which mimic other conditions. This can lead to delays in diagnosis, making it harder to limit damage to organs.
Dr Shabina Sultan, rheumatology consultant at Airedale Hospital, said: “We need to make sure that the public and health professionals know more about systemic lupus, so diagnosis can be made quickly and accurately to help prevent patients from suffering long-term damage and to improve their quality of life.”
Systemic lupus is an incurable illness of the immune system. It causes the body’s defence mechanism to attack itself through an excess of antibodies in the blood stream, causing inflammation and damage to joints, muscles and other organs.
Symptoms to watch out for are small blood vessels being over-sensitive to changes in temperature, discolouration of the fingers, toes and other areas, joint and muscle pain and extreme tiredness, rashes, photosensitivity, anaemia, fever, hair loss, mouth ulcers, depression and headaches.
For more information, log on to lupusuk.org.
uk.
