For those who have had Drug Induced Lupus

I started Humira back in May and developed the classic butterfly face rash and noticed it would disappear 10 days after the shot. Of course it reappeared 4 days later when I shot the next dose. It looked real bad a couple of weeks ago and I stopped it immediately. I have enough problems and don't need Lupus.

That was 2 1/2 weeks ago and I haven't seen the rash since.

I developed antibodies [anti-dsDNA] found in lupus while on Remicade. I had some symptoms but none that would point to it be DILE because they were also symptoms found in my disease. Remicade stopped working and I switched to Humira. Within 2 months I had full-blown DILE. I had a fever of 100-100.9 everyday for 4 months. My red blood cell levels that had always been borderline low became very low. I had incredible fatigue. I could not walk the length of my house [50 feet] without resting for a half hour following. I had visibly inflamed and swollen joints that had not been previously involved in my disease process. I developed a rash on skin exposed to the sun light. My ANA turned positive and the level of anti-dsDNA antibodies skyrocketed. I developed mouth sores that would not heal and were so painful it compromised my ability to eat.

I was put on Prednisone and Plaquenil. After 6 weeks, the prednisone was stopped. I remained on the Plaquenil for another year. At that time, all the symptoms subsided, the ANA was normal and there were no longer any anti-dsDNA antibodies. My rheumy feels this was definitely DILE, not lupus outright.