July 6, 2015

New to Lupus? FREE EDUCATION CLASS

LFNC's Patient Education Classes offer an excellent avenue to learn how to deal with and manage your disease, and we conform to the highest standards set by the American College of Rheumatology.

If you are new to lupus - whether you are a patient, a caregiver or a loved one, please check out our classes. The classes for the rest of the year - beginning July 11 - have been announced. Register for your preferred date now.

Keep Beating the Drum to a Lupus Cure - Fund Campaign

You can help keep beating the drum in our drumbeat to a lupus cure. Click here to give today!

The 5K is over this year, but we have updates and photos and T-shirts! See the photos (find yourself?), and buy a T-shirt for just $10 - shipping included - right here.

Information contained in this e-Newsletter should not be considered a substitute for professional diagnosis, treatment or management of S.L.E. and symptoms by a physician.

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Editor: Spandan Chakrabarti

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French Study: Pre-term Birth Rate Reduced in Lupus Patients Taking Plaquenil During Pregnancy

This is our second week in a row of covering pregnancy issues in lupus in this newsletter. While last week we covered a study confirming general medical advise that when lupus is under control pregnancy is safe, this week we turn our attention to a new French study released over the weekend indicating that pregnant lupus patients who are on a regimen of the commonly prescribed antimalarial drug Plaquenil (chemical composition/scientific name 'hydroxychloroquine') have significantly reduced fetal risks than those who are not.

Among women taking hydroxychloroquine while pregnant, preterm birth (before 37 weeks) occurred in 15.8% compared with 44.2% for women not on the antimalarial agent (P=0.006), according to M.E. Leroux, MD, of La Reunion University Hospital in St. Pierre, and colleagues.

And the rate of intrauterine growth restriction was significantly lower in the hydroxychloroquine-treated group (10.5% versus 28.6%, P=0.03), the researchers reported online in Lupus.

The study also underscores the hightened risk of tobacco use and lupus-induced hypertension during pregnancy. Read more about the study here. As always, if you plan on becoming pregnant, the LFNC strongly encourages you to consult with your medical team and especially your rheumatologist to plan your pregnancy.

LFNC to Launch Lupus Buddy Program: A First of Its Kind Initiative in Lupus

It seems there is news about lupus about every time you look now - which is great for our community. But how do you make sense of all of it and how it all relates to what you are going through? This newsletter is a good place to start. Consulting your medical team is another. But wouldn't it be great if you had buddy who knew exactly what you are experiencing?

As a natural extension - and perhaps in the future, evolution - of LFNC's patient-centered programs, the LFNC is proud to announce the Lupus Buddy Program. In this program, patients who express interest will be paired up with others based on lupus disease type and experience. The Buddy Program is a first-of-its-kind initiative that we hope to spread throughout the national lupus community, but we start with you. Our goal is to find each participant a "buddy" - another participant. Matched on the basis of the stages of lupus experience (a patient with a great deal of knowledge and experience may be matched with someone relatively new, for example), so that experience can meet new energy, and the new can feel safe.

The program will be conducted under the strictest of LFNC's patient confidentiality policy, as we take your privacy seriously. Our highly trained program coordinators will make the matches and the introductions under the same strict confidentiality guidelines. For further detail on the program, please see this summary, the full program brochure, or give us a call at 408-954-8600.

We hope that you will join us in this effort and sign up to be a buddy. After all, what more meaningful way to add to your support network than to have a buddy who is going through (or has gone through) the same thing you are? Please fill out this initial interest form and we will contact you with more details.