Lupus Stage 4: Symptoms, Tests and Treatment

Lupus, also named Lupus Nephritis, is a kidney inflammation caused by systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disorder. According to different pathological manifestations, Lupus can be divided into five stages. Among them, Lupus stage 4 accounts for about 40% of Lupus cases and it easily develops renal failure. Therefore, knowing Lupus stage 4 symptoms, tests and treatment is fairly helpful for these patients.

Lupus stage 4 symptoms

Since Lupus is usually a systemic disorder, it usually causes damage to both kidney and many other organs. The following is an overall understanding of these symptoms.

● Fatigue, fever and weight decline

● Skin red spot or skin rash

● Hair loss, muscle pain or weakness

● Changes in urine such as foamy urine and blood urine

● High blood pressure

● Swelling

● Anemia and hypoalbuminemia

Lupus stage 4 test

To determine whether a person has this disease, blood tests, urine tests, X-rays, ultrasound scans of the kidney and a kidney biopsy may be used. What’s more, these tests can not only help the person detect his kidney disease but also pave a good preparation for the following accurate treatment.

Lupus stage 4 treatment

All types of Lupus Nephritis are a consequence of immune complexes attacking kidney, so inhibiting the activity of these immune complexes is urgently needed. In view of this, corticosteroids and immunosuppressant drugs are used commonly to preventing immune complexes from attacking kidney again and again. In some cases, anti-hypertensive agents are also needed if the patient has high blood pressure that is a big risk of further kidney damage. In most cases, these methods indeed can help remit patients’ condition, but the rupture of Lupus and side effects of these medicines drive patients to find a more effective treatment.

According to the characteristics of Lupus stage 4, Immunotherapy is used to remove those immune complexes from the body and try to repair damaged but not necrotic kidney function as much as possible. Because immunotherapy mainly uses herbal medicines, it nearly doesn’t produce any side effect. Hopefully, it can help treat more and more people with Lupus Nephritis.