Signs Of Lupus Not To Miss (Butterfly Rash Is Just One Thing Of Many)

Different kinds of lupus can look quite different:

Things to recognize

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease where your immune system attacks your own body. In the case of systemic lupus, it usually affects your skin, joints, kidneys, lungs, heart, brain, and other organs, while cutaneous lupus refers specifically to lupus affecting your skin.

No matter what kind of lupus it is, though, the skin is the first likely place to notice the signs, so, let’s get into it:

• Lupus in general: lupus can cause a butterfly-shaped facial rash over your cheeks and nose, round scaly plaques, painful mouth or nose sores, widespread flaky rashes, purple-red bumps on your fingers or toes, deep painful nodules under your skin, and scarring hair loss on your scalp.
• Discoid lupus: the most common skin-only form causes thick round scaly lesions on your face or scalp that can scar permanently, leave dark or light patches, and cause permanent hair loss if untreated.
• Tumid lupus: a rarer skin-only form causing firm raised plaques, often on your chest, that heal without scars or pigment changes.
• Chilblain lupus: causes itchy dusky-purple bumps on your fingers, toes, ears, elbows, knees, or nose after cold damp exposure.
• Lupus profundus: a deeper form affecting the fat under your skin, causing painful nodules that can heal with permanent hollows or indentations.
• Subacute cutaneous lupus: produces ring-shaped, scaly, sun-triggered rashes that can resemble eczema or psoriasis, and are more associated with systemic disease.
• Acute cutaneous lupus: includes the classic butterfly or malar rash triggered by sun exposure and is strongly associated with systemic lupus erythematosus.

One other thing to bear in mind is that many other conditions can mimic a lupus butterfly rash, including rosacea and seborrheic dermatitis, so facial redness alone doesn’t confirm lupus.

Since there is no proven cure for lupus yet, lupus generally requires long-term treatment to manage inflammation, prevent organ damage, reduce scarring, and limit permanent hair loss or other unwanted aesthetic effects.

Avoiding common lupus triggers where possible is good in general, for example UV light from the sun or tanning beds, smoking, vaping, infections, stress, surgery, illness, and some medications (always read labels and check for contraindications).

For more on all of this plus visual illustrations, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

For a much more in-depth treatment of lupus management, you might like this excellent book we reviewed a while back:

The Lupus Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Guide For Patients & Healthcare Providers – by Dr. Donald Thomas et al.

The “et al.” in question? Jemima Albayda, MD; Divya Angra, MD; Alan N. Baer, MD; Sasha Bernatsky, MD, PhD; George Bertsias, MD, PhD; Ashira D. Blazer, MD; Ian Bruce, MD; Jill Buyon, MD; Yashaar Chaichian, MD; Maria Chou, MD; Sharon Christie, Esq; Angelique N. Collamer, MD; Ashté Collins, MD; Caitlin O. Cruz, MD; Mark M. Cruz, MD; Dana DiRenzo, MD; Jess D. Edison, MD; Titilola Falasinnu, PhD; Andrea Fava, MD; Cheri Frey, MD; Neda F. Gould, PhD; Nishant Gupta, MD; Sarthak Gupta, MD; Sarfaraz Hasni, MD; David Hunt, MD; Mariana J. Kaplan, MD; Alfred Kim, MD; Deborah Lyu Kim, DO; Rukmini Konatalapalli, MD; Fotios Koumpouras, MD; Vasileios C. Kyttaris, MD; Jerik Leung, MPH; Hector A. Medina, MD; Timothy Niewold, MD; Julie Nusbaum, MD; Ginette Okoye, MD; Sarah L. Patterson, MD; Ziv Paz, MD; Darryn Potosky, MD; Rachel C. Robbins, MD; Neha S. Shah, MD; Matthew A. Sherman, MD; Yevgeniy Sheyn, MD; Julia F. Simard, ScD; Jonathan Solomon, MD; Rodger Stitt, MD; George Stojan, MD; Sangeeta Sule, MD; Barbara Taylor, CPPM, CRHC; George Tsokos, MD; Ian Ward, MD; Emma Weeding, MD; Arthur Weinstein, MD; Sean A. Whelton, MD

The reason we mention this is to render it clear that this isn’t one man’s opinions (as happens with many books about certain topics), but rather, a panel of that many doctors all agreeing that this is correct and good, evidence-based, up-to-date (as of the publication of this latest revised edition all so recently) information.

Want to learn less?

If the aforementioned 848-page opus seems a little too overwhelming, then you might prefer:

The Lupus Solution – by Dr. Tiffany Caplan & Dr. Brent Caplan ← a much slimmer tome; just 182 pages 🙂

Take care!