How does a person get lupus? it doesn't come from a spider bite does it?

Question

How does a person get lupus? it doesn't come from a spider bite does it?

Answer 1

Lupus is an autoimmune disorder (ref 1 below) and it is not a contagious disease.  You don't catch it from spider bites.  An autoimmune disease is what results when your body's immune system doesn't just attack foreign stuff but also attacks certain types of cells in your body.  What cells it attacks kind of tells you what disease it is (i.e. lupus, grave's disease, scleroderma).  

As with all autoimmune diseases, a kind of general way of looking at is is that you get lupus if your genes are programmed for you to have lupus.  

There is such a thing as drug induced lupus (see ref 2 below) which is "a side-effect of long-term use of certain medications. Specific criteria for diagnosing drug-induced lupus have not been formally established. However, some symptoms overlap with those of SLE. These include:

    * Muscle and joint pain and swelling

    * Flu-like symptoms of fatigue and fever

    * Serositis (inflammation around the lungs or heart that causes pain or discomfort)

    * Certain laboratory test abnormalities.

Once the suspected medication is stopped, symptoms should decline within days. Usually symptoms disappear within one or two weeks. Drug-induced lupus can be diagnosed with certainty only by resolution of symptoms and their failure to recur after stopping the medication."

Answer 2

I'm not an expert, but I thought Lupus was an auto immune disease in which the body mistakenly begins to recognize certain factors within the body as being "invaders" and begins to attack itself. You do not "catch it" from someone else or something else. I believe Lupus symptoms can include joint pain and rash- which can also be that of spider bite symptoms. However, I do not think the bites cause Lupus...rather Lupus-like symptoms.  

Answer 3

Lupus does not come from spiders. It's usually autoimmune - meaning your body turns on itself for whatever reason (there are many different factors) You might be thinking of Lyme disease that comes from ticks.

Answer 4

Don't fear.  Can't get it from a spider bite and it is not contagious.  Lupus is strongly believed to be  congenital meaning you are born with it although they haven't determined the exact genes associated with it.  Though some people that are born with it never have symptoms while for others it can be very serious, even fatal.

There are some rare cases where people develop Lupus symptoms from certain drugs but it is believed that they already had the genes to develop it - the drugs just triggered the symptoms.

I think the other poster is right - you must be thinking of Lyme disease which you can't get from a spider.

Answer 5

Lupus is an auto-immune disease, like rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes. There is no indication that it can be transmitted by a spider bite.