Toni Braxton is back home after spending several days in the hospital due to complications from lupus. The singer’s spokeswoman, Maureen O’Connor, told The Associated Press that Braxton is “resting at home and is fine.” O’Connor added that the 48-year-old is not in serious condition, but her disease must be monitored at all times.
Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body), according to the Lupus Foundation of America. With lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system, the organization explains, and it can’t differentiate between bacteria, viruses, germs, and your body’s healthy tissue. Consequently, the immune system of lupus sufferers attacks and destroys healthy tissue.
An estimated 1.5 million Americans have lupus, according to the foundation, and Selena Gomez, Nick Cannon, and Seal are among them. Anyone can have lupus, but it largely impacts women, and most develop it between the age of 15 and 44.
The singer’s sister, Tamar Braxton, posted a video on Instagram on Monday of Toni receiving a hug while lying in a hospital bed. “I absolutely HATE when she is sick,” she wrote in the caption. “You are home safe and we can make you smile even when you’re faking like you feel well enough to laugh at the joke…Shout out to all lupus superwomen and men who know what that’s like.”
“No single factor causes lupus,” Jennifer Haythe, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, tells SELF. “Researchers believe it to be caused by a combination of genetic, hormonal, environmental, and immune factors.”
Someone can be genetically disposed to have lupus (Braxton's uncle died of the disease, and her brother suffers from it), which is triggered by environmental factors like exposure to sunlight, certain medications, and even psychological or physical stress, James Pestka, Ph.D., a professor at Michigan State University who has studied lupus, tells SELF. That’s also what can cause someone to have flare-ups, like Braxton, he says.
Leticia Ocana, national health educator at the Lupus Foundation of America, tells SELF that flare-ups aren’t rare for lupus sufferers. “Lupus is a disease of flares, where the person experiences the symptoms and falls ill, but it’s also a disease of remission, where the person feels better,” she says.
The types of flare-ups someone experiences vary from person to person because lupus can affect people differently, Lynn M. Ludmer, M.D., a rheumatologist at Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center—some people may experience a “butterfly” skin rash across their nose and cheeks, while others can have joint pain, kidney issues, blood clots, or an infection. "Lupus is not the same lupus in everybody," she says.
While lupus flares are often consistent with the same patient, they can also be different in the same person, says Haythe. Meaning, a sufferer may develop a butterfly rash they’ve had in the past, but also have joint pain they’ve never experienced before.
Treatment for lupus and lupus flares largely depends on how it manifests itself in a person, Pestka says. People with more minor symptoms may be able to manage them with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, while those with more severe forms of the disease may need corticosteroids to suppress inflammation, or monoclonal antibodies (antibodies that are clones of their cells).
Unfortunately, lupus can't be cured, but it's possible for many people with the disease to live healthy lives, Ludmer says, adding that she sees several patients who only discovered they had the disease from a routine blood test. "While some people can become very ill from lupus, for many people, the main struggle is fatigue," she says. "We don't have a good drug for that yet."
