Lupus Awareness Month: Montreal doctor, patient shed light

For May – Lupus Awareness Month – Stephanie Larocque, along with Montreal Lupus specialist Dr. Sasha Bernatsky, are spreading the word on the latest therapies and how to stay hopeful while managing a Lupus diagnosis.

“A person can have a lot of questions. If you’re diagnosed with Lupus in your twenties or even younger, it can be a bit discouraging,” Dr. Bernatsky said.

Prior to being diagnosed with Lupus in 2005, Larocque says she was “experiencing symptoms for many years […] and I had to get really sick before they found out what was going on.”

“I was exhausted going to bed at 8 p.m. I had skin rashes. I had a lot of pain in my body. I was losing my hair. […] It was a rocky time until I got stabilized, and a lot of that was me kind of in denial about my illness being a young woman who wanted to keep up with her friends,” the Montreal Lupus Clinic patient added. 

According to the Canadian Spondyloarthritis Association, women account for 90 per cent of Canadians who are diagnosed with the autoimmune disease. Dr. Bernatsky, also a senior scientist at the MUHC Research Institute, says of this subset, many are diagnosed during child-bearing age.

Yet, the Montreal General Hospital rheumatologist stresses, “the amazing thing is now we do have strategies that can really optimize the health.”

Though there is currently no cure for Lupus, Dr. Bernatsky says the key to managing the disease is controlling the overactivity of patients’ immune systems without compromising regular immune function.

“Some of the beneficial developments have been using drugs that are often first discovered to be useful in things like organ transplants where they need to control the immune system or cancer, where again there’s a lot of interplay,” the doctor told CityNews.

She added: “A little over 10 years ago, we started getting some data on a special drug that was meant just for Lupus. […] That was the first time that researchers were able to isolate a protein, a molecule that could affect the immune system in a beneficial way to keep Lupus activity controlled without hopefully causing too many side effects.”

After agreeing to take part in what she calls a “mind-shifting” clinical trial, Larocque says “the most important thing you can do is talk to your doctor, tell them how you’re feeling, be open, be honest about your fear, your anxiety.”

“I work with my doctor, they work with me, and hopefully that will work for the future of patients as well,” says Larocque.

For more information on Lupus and how you can help the Montreal General Hospital, visit Lupus Canada or contact the Montreal General Hospital Foundation.

You can also visit the Rheumatology Development Fund to support their clinical and research activities.