Teens with lupus can follow some beneficial habits to adopt a healthy life such as engaging in regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, maintain flexibility with school schedule, organizing and planning your day, finding hobbies to stay active and going online to express yourself.
What is lupus?
Lupus is what is commonly referred for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an auto – immune disorder where the body’s own immune system – antibodies attacks its own tissues and organs.
Lupus causes inflammation of various body systems including joints, kidneys, blood cells, skin, heart, and lungs.
Read More: 7 Astonishing Symptoms and Cause of Lupus in Kids
What are the symptoms indicating lupus?
Lupus being an autoimmune disorder elicits few symptoms such as –
- Butterfly – shaped rash usually on the face.
- Fatigue
- Arthritis in one or more joints causing swelling and tenderness
- Sensitivity to light
- Seizures or other nerve problems
- Ulcers formation in the mouth
- Hair loss
- Pulmonary problems
- Kidney inflammation
- Unexplained low – grade fever
What are the beneficial habits teens with lupus can adopt for a healthy life?
Everybody live a very hard and fast life where they do a lot of work in a little amount of time. This applies very much for teens. Teens have to juggle their mere twenty four hours a day between school and education, co – curricular activities, family, friends, and at the same time restore their energy by getting a good night’s sleep.
For a teen with a medical condition like lupus this juggling of time gets all the more harder and all the more stressful. Lupus causes you to fatigue more often and slows your ability to work more. This can add on to your work load and stress load and you may have trouble adapting to this.
Here are some beneficial habits that teens with lupus can adopt for a healthy life:
7 Beneficial Habits of Teens with Lupus
Learn how to organise your day and plan accordingly
Organizing and planning is the key to doing anything, especially teens with lupus need to follow this all the more effectively.
You need to learn to plan your day according to your work and remembering to give adequate time for rest too. You need not do everything perfectly; after all doing anything perfectly is ever rarely achieved. Avoid stressing yourself with the workload.
You may also need to bring about changes in your schedule after having been diagnosed with lupus. For example, teens who usually stayed up late at night finishing up their assignments could no longer do so after being diagnosed with lupus and have now started working in the mornings where the efficiency is best. Similarly, you too can make such changes.
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Your social circle may change up
After being diagnosed with lupus you undergo some massive changes in your health and the way you function. Similar to that you need to be ready to accept some changes in your social circle too.
You could make a whole lot of new friends who will be there to help you and support you along your way and you will also have to change your hangout plans quiet frequently owing to you feeling fatigued. You need to accept all these as your health is of most important here.
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Flex your school schedule to your comfort
Managing school assignments, tests and quizzes in a stipulated time period can get quite overwhelming. What is needed is for you to be flexible with your schedule.
One solution is taking up online classes. This is what a few teens with lupus have done; they chose to study from online classes. This way, their study schedule was quite flexible and worked accordingly with their health demands.
Also, your teachers can be flexible with your schedule too on your request and can reschedule any important test that you’ve missed due to your doctor’s appointments or any other health related issue.
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Find hobbies that will help you to stay active
It is true that with lupus you fell fatigued easily and being active becomes quite difficult. But it is also necessary to find hobbies or activities that will help you stay active. Find something you like and do it. It not just helps you while away the time or boost your skills but also makes you feel good mentally. This is necessary as although you are with lupus, you should not always think about lupus and think about living your life.
Engage in regular exercise
Exercise is the best solution for almost every ailment. Engaging in exercise regularly keeps you healthy, fit and active. Teens with lupus with regular exercise can also boost their immunity and stay healthy. This helps them.
Eat a healthy diet
A healthy and balanced diet is very essential for boosting your immunity and staying healthy. Healthy diet gives you the strength and counteracts with you being fatigued easily. Teens are still growing and the more healthy diet and more exercise they engage in, the better it is for them.
Use social media as a means to express yourself
Dealing with a medical condition such as lupus at a prime age is quite a daunting task. Teens are under constant stress and constant struggle in trying to balance everything along with their condition taking a toll on them, they need a means to express themselves on a platform where they are understood.
Teens with lupus have found using YouTube to watch funny videos is helpful. Some teens use lupus dedicated Facebook pages to talk to and read about others in a similar situation to them.
Read More: 11 Herbs to Ensure Good Sleep to Your Teenager
Conclusion
Lupus is an autoimmune disorder causing the body’s own immune system to attack its own tissues and organs. Generally noticed symptoms are rash, inflammation of kidneys, pulmonary problems, fatigue, sensitivity to light, joint pain, seizures and nerve problems, etc.
References
https://www.childrens.com/health-wellness/lupus-in-children
https://resources.lupus.org/entry/teens-adjust-to-life-with-lupus
