We follow quite a few patient advocacy groups on Twitter, one of which is Hibbs Lupus Trust . This morning I saw several retweets of their patient-followers discussing how long it took for them to get an accurate diagnosis of lupus. For some, it was relatively quick - a few months. I say relatively because for some it was over a decade. How can this be, in our super-duper modern medical system? The most advanced technologies to date are at our physician's fingertips, yet it took 15 years to get diagnosed? Diagnosing a chronic illness can be tricky, especially if the illness is insidious or rare. According to the American College of Rheumatology, there are around 330 possible clinical presentations of systemic lupus erythematosus. Depending on what part of the country you live, your access to high tech medicine may be limited. Or, depending on how rare your condition is, there may not be any specialists in a 500 mile radius who've heard of, let alone know how to treat,
If you're living with a chronic illness, you're in the right place.