Doctors took several years before making the diagnosis of Alexandra Marcela’s illness, assuring that her ailments were due to her being overweight even though she had lupus.
- Doctors took a long time to diagnose a young woman with lupus, telling her that her ailments were due to her being overweight.
- However, Alexandra Marcela had characteristic symptoms of lupus such as the rash.
- She set up a TikTok channel to share her experience with Internet users.
Alexandra Marcela’s story is that of a therapeutic wandering tinged with “fatphobia” before being diagnosed with lupus. The young woman confided it in detail to the American magazine People.
Lupus: his disorders were linked to being overweight and his “insecurities” for doctors
It all began during her first pregnancy, in Orlando, in the United States, when Alexandra Marcela was 18 years old. She has facial rashes and hives. More worrying, blood clots were developing in his body.
“My legs were so swollen I couldn’t walk, indicates the young mother, now 26 years old.. The doctors told me it was a preeclampsia, but it was my first pregnancy and I had so many complications. So it was very frustrating and no one knew what was going on. (…) When I started following all my appointments, I was always told that losing weight would solve all my problems.”
During a consultation, her gynecologist noticed a “butterfly-shaped rash” – or wolf mask – on his face and then sends him to a rheumatologist. Neither specialist made the link between the young woman’s symptoms and lupus. The only explanations they give him are that his “her legs wouldn’t hurt if (she) wasn’t so heavy” or that she was “probably depressed”, because it must be “unsatisfied” of herself and has “insecurities”.
Lupus: the diagnosis comes two years later
During her second pregnancy, Alexandra’s symptoms increased. She consults again and the diagnosis is finally made. She suffers from lupus. The young woman remembers: “I was 20 years old, and I’m like: what is lupus? I’ve never heard of lupus a day in my life.”
It is a chronic autoimmune disease which results in a dysfunction of the immune system which leads it to attack to the connective tissues of the body. L’Health Insurance indicates on its site: “Lupus can begin with any of the following signs appearing during an attack and often associated with moderate but prolonged fever, fatigue or lack of appetite. The initial symptoms are most often pain joints and skin damage. But as the disease progresses, other organs can be affected.
Treatment for lupus led Alexandra to gain a lot of weight and reach 300 pounds. “The doctors told me: if your lupus is this bad, it’s because you are overweight”, she remembers. Alexandra Marcela begins a diet and agrees to have bariatric surgery. She thus managed to lose more than 65 kilos in one year. But the situation is not getting better, his symptoms are even stronger than before. “Here I am today, half as thin as the person I was before, and my lupus has never been worseshe confides. It’s a daily battle.“
Today, she learned to live with lupus and decided to share her experience with Internet users on TikTok. “Someone had to take up the cause, she explains. We never hear about autoimmune diseases. (…) The worst part is that, as it is an invisible illness, you can feel like you are collapsing from the inside, but no one will ever see it.”
Women are more affected by lupus than men. According to health insurancethey represent 90% of cases.
