Lupus on "House, M.D."

Just recently I have been hooked on watching the television series "House, M.D.".  It's an interesting show, not only because of the cool lines from the show's lead character.  It makes one realize that diagnosing an illness is for the most part, making educated guesses, taking risks, and working with what you have.  I'm not sure if my doctor used "differential diagnosis" to determine that I have SLE 14 years ago, but I guess that was what showed, given all the symptoms I showed.

The show had one episode, "Detox", where Dr.House's team was treating this 16-year old kid, and this was the same time that Dr. House was trying to stay off pain killer pills.  All the symptoms pointed to him having lupus, and it was a bit disturbing for me.  I mean they concluded it was lupus because of the following: irregularity in the blood, blood coming out of every orifice, liver failure, high WBC count, and . . . psychosis.  This was the disturbing part.  They said the fourth criterion for lupus was psychosis.  Hmmmm.  Well, my friends do say I'm a whacko, but I didn't think my condition would eventually lead to me losing sanity.  I don't think this show doesn't go with screenplays that are not well-researched also.  I'm kind of . . . scared, if this is really a picture of what can possibly happen if my condition goes uncontrolled.  Well, I've already had a glimpse of it during the first attack: rashes, very high fever, joint paints, muscle pains, blood in the urine, and falling hair.  I didn't think it could be much worse.  Pyschosis-worse.  In a way, I am thankful that my condition is controlled, and it's been this manageable ever since my first attack.

The thing with me, I guess, is that I kind of take my having SLE for granted.  I haven't actually researched on it, even after 14 years of being with it.  I got probably used to being in the controlled state that I took the "normalcy" as a given.  I used to say to myself that my health will come first above all, but the hustle and bustle of everyday routine probably made me forget about it:  I sleep late;  I'm in a stressful high-strung job; I don't drink water as much as I ought to.  Hopefully it doesn't come back at me.  As usual, when I get to a realization like this, I resolve to change habits.  Good luck to me.

In the episode, it was eventually found that the kid did not have lupus, but had been poisoned with napthalene (because of the termites in his room).  Lucky kid.