When we have lupus, any health situation can be aggravated or complicated.  If it’s something that comes from the outside, for example, a virus or bacteria, our immune system is not concentrated only in attacking the external enemy, but a part of it is attacking the enemy and another part is attacking, frequently, the same organ which is being already attacked by the virus and/or bacteria (or some other organ, it’s impossible to predict what it will attack).  It’s like an army that lost communications with the command center, that finds itself in the battlefield and can’t distinguish the enemy, but the battlefield is it’s own territory, the war is being fought in it’s own cities and the army can’t tell the enemy from it’s own people, so it decides to destroy everything in sight.  Can you imagine the disaster that would be?  Well, this disaster is what happens inside a lupus patient every time a flare comes, it’s this crazy army attacking everything.  The only thing doctors can do is kill the army itself.  They give us medications to inhibit the immune system to anihiliate our own army, in an attempt to make it stop attacking it’s own cities (organs).  So, what happens with the real enemy? It doesn’t have opposition any longer, there is no defense against it, it reproduces and attacks without obsatcles.  That is why a simple cold can become a hospital grade pneumonia in a very short time, it can get so complicated.

   As if this wasn’t enough, when the immune system attacks an internal organ (triggered by things not necessarily microorganisms, but other, like strong emotions, hormonal changes, stress, sunlight, etc.), there is no defense against it.  Let’s go back to the country analogy.  Your country has no other defense than it’s army.  If it attacks, the country is completely vulnerable.  That’s the bad news, and the answer to what can get complicated, well, everything.   The good news is if your country (body) is well, strong and balanced, it can withstand the immune sysem attacks and recuperate from them faster.  The solution I have found is this, to maintain my body as healthy, desintoxicated, strong and calm as possible.  This way I have achieved less, shorter, less accute flares and a faster recuperation from them.  Keeping the body well, calm and strong is a system, you have to consider all the parts: the physical body, the mind, the emotions and even the spiritual.  Only if we keep the whole being well will it have the physical, emotional and spiritual strength to face the immune system attacks.