Lupus Patients Suffer More Than We Say

I don't think anyone's going to be surprised about this.

GSK has released the results of a  "global" survey ("global" here meaning North America, Brazil and three European countries) which found patients only told their doctors about the symptoms that annoyed them most.  Things that patients responding to the survey said were real problems, doctors had seen as minor because patients under-reported.

It also found that carers thought lupus patients could do more than they actually could, and that carers did not realise the affect lupus had on confidence, social life, and many other areas.

And the blame for all of this? It's on us, the patients.  We're all too nice.  We try to protect our families and carers. We don't want to dump everything on our doctors.  Surprise, surprise. They don't know what we don't tell them.

So perhaps what we can learn from this piece of research which has told us what most of us already knew, is that we really need to be honest with our family, friends and carers; and we need to make a list of everything when we go to the doctor.


Reference: Survey find lupus patients suffer more than physicians perceive