Welcome to the forum Sally
I am glad you have found your way here
You are in a good place for lupus treatment at least as one of the top lupus docs in the UK is based in Southampton !
I am sorry about your diagnosis and how severely it is affecting you. Make sure your doctors are fully aware how bad things are because the main aim of treatment has to be ensure quality of life and to minimise the impact. Ability to work is so important financially and emotionally. Unfortunately it can take time to find the right mix of meds.
Everybody is slightly differently affected by lupus so it's helpful to find out in detail how your lupus is affecting you and how you were diagnosed.
I suggest getting copies of your blood tests and learning to understand them which we can help you with.
There is a vast amount of information out there about lupus most of which won't be relevant to any one person. A lot deals with worst cases too and it can be frightening wondering what the future might hold for oneself.
There's also a lot of out of date and poor quality info as well as complete rubbish!
Remember too that this forum is not typical of the lupus population as a whole because in general only people who have ongoing problems use message boards.
Many of us have years of personal experience plus insights from other people's experiences and we have spent a lot of time researching too.
We hope to help people get through the tough times pre diagnosis and post diagnosis and crises with information and emotional support. As they say, the only silly question is the one that isn't asked, so ask away and tap into the wealth of information and understanding that we can provide.
Bye for now
Clare
