Common Diseases That Overlap with Lupus (original) (raw)

Sometimes, people with lupus also have other conditions or diseases. These “overlap” conditions may include Raynaud’s syndrome, Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and others. If you think you have another condition besides lupus, talk to your rheumatologist.

Raynaud’s syndrome

Raynaud’s syndrome causes blood vessels in certain parts of your body to tighten. When this happens, less blood gets to those areas. About 1 in 3 people with lupus also have Raynaud’s.

Raynaud’s most often affects the fingers and toes, but it can also affect blood vessels in other parts of your body — like your ear lobes, nose, or lips. Raynaud’s “attacks” usually last for about 15 minutes. They’re often brought on by triggers like cold temperatures or stress.

Symptoms of a Raynaud’s attack can include:

• Color changes to the skin. Your fingers or toes may turn red, white, blue, or purple.
• Cold or numb skin. During an attack, it might feel like your hands or feet are “asleep.”
• Tingling. As blood flow returns, you might have a tingling or “pins and needles” feeling in your hands or feet.

Sjögren’s disease

Sjögren’s disease is an autoimmune disorder that targets the glands that create moisture. Up to 9 out of every 50 people with lupus also have Sjögren’s disease. You’re more likely to have Sjögren’s disease if you’re a woman or if you’re between ages 45 and 55.

Sjögren’s disease most often affects the mouth and eyes, but it can affect other parts of the body too. Symptoms can include:

• Dryness in the mouth, eyes, skin, nose, throat, or vagina
• Joint or muscle pain
• Fatigue (feeling very tired all the time)
• Trouble swallowing or speaking due to dryness
• Skin rashes
• Brain fog (having trouble focusing or thinking)

Rheumatoid arthritis

Like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that mainly affects the joints, usually the wrists, fingers and toes. But it can also affect the eyes, mouth, or lungs. Some people might use the term “rhupus” to describe RA and lupus that overlap.

Symptoms of RA include:

• Pain, swelling, stiffness, or tenderness in more than 1 joint
• Stiffness that’s worse in the morning or after sitting for long periods of time
• Pain and stiffness that affects the same joint on both sides of your body (for example, both wrists)
• Weakness or fatigue (feeling very tired all the time)
• Fever

Many of these symptoms are also present in lupus and can be hard to distinguish from RA. The joint swelling and potential joint deformities and erosions of the joint bones are more common in RA.

Read more about how lupus affects the joints, muscles, and bones.

Other diseases that overlap with lupus

• Autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto’s - underactive thyroid function and Graves disease – overactive thyroid function) and other thyroid disorders. These conditions affect your thyroid gland (the butterfly-shaped gland in the front of your neck that makes hormones).
• Celiac disease. This is a digestive and autoimmune disorder that targets your small intestine. It’s triggered by eating food s that contain a protein called gluten.
• Myasthenia gravis. This disease causes weakness in your muscles. The weakness generally gets worse when you’re active and better when you rest.
• Antiphospholipid syndrome. This condition can cause blood clots to form and can lead to other health problems — like stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism (when blood flow to the lungs is blocked), deep vein thrombosis (clot usually in the leg), and recurrent miscarriages.
• Polymyositis. This is a rare disease that can cause muscle weakness due to inflammation of the muscles, joint swelling and tenderness, and tissue damage.
• Dermatomyositis. This disease is similar to polymyositis. In addition to causing muscle problems, dermatomyositis can also cause skin rashes that can be sensitive to the sun.
• Sarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis is a rare inflammatory disease that causes lumps of inflamed tissue (granulomas) to form in the body, most commonly in the lungs and lymph nodes.
• Scleroderma. Scleroderma is a group of diseases that cause skin to become tight, thick or hardened. It can also cause joint and muscle pain, breathing problems and kidney disease.
• IgG4-RD. This is a rare and challenging-to-diagnose diagnose disease caused by a dysfunctional immune system. Like lupus, IgG4-RD can cause inflammation in any part of the body.