Pre-Diagnosis Symptoms

Hello Everyone,
I am new to this and have actually never been in a chat room. I was wondering is anyone who has been diagnosed with Lupus ever had any other diagnoses before that one. My mother and grandmother both have Lupus, and I have been diagnosed with another autoimmune disorder called chronic urticaria. Urticaria is just a technical term for hives. I get them everywhere inside and out. I cant digest food and can barley breath without my medication. I have been doing alright taking ranitidine, hydroxyzine and montelucast. I still sometimes breakout when it gets close to time for my medication. Recently though, some weird things have been happening. I am getting these weird dizzy spells and my coordination is off. I dont really know how to explain the dizziness because it isn't like the whole room is spinning, but more like I cant focus and everything seems blurry or far away. Also, I am a waitress and I just finished school. My balance is pretty good and my typing skills are generally pretty good, but that is not true lately. I am making many typing mistakes and I find it difficult to balance a tray full of food these days. I guess my main concern though, is when I am driving. I have a 3 year old and I looked back at him for a split second today and when I turned back to the road, I had one of those dizzy spells and swerved into the other lane.

I noticed that many of you seem to have similar symptoms and I was hoping I could get some advice. If anyone has any ideas of what I can do to keep this under control, I would love to hear it. This has been happening for about 4 days now and seems to be progressively getting worse. I plan to call my doctor tomorrow and after what happened today in the car, I am really scared. Anything would help me right now, I think.

Hi Jamie421 and welcome to our forum! It's common for folks to have more than one autoimmune disease. Although your Mother and Grandmother have lupus you may have completely different autoimmune diseases, or lupus.

There are so many illnesses and diseases that cause neurological problems, including dizziness and balance problems. Everything from ear problems to complex diseases. Neurological problems were some of the first signs that I had Lupus. I had dizziness, frequent falls, tremors, loss of sensation, and cognitive problems (can't think straight or remember things). I went through a phase that lasted a few months when I couldn't drive because of double vision and blurred vision. Luckily I live in a metropolitan city with a decent bus and train system and even more importantly, by the time this vision problem happened I was already on permanent disability from Lupus.

Please let us know what your doc has to say, okay? Love, Butterflake