I was diagnosed with Medically Induced Lupus but I don’t take any meds

Hi @shorey93, your primary care physician would know that you are not taking any medications, right? Drug-induced lupus typically comes after many months or years of continuous therapy with the causative drug.
Here's more information with a list of medications:
- Medications that can cause drug-induced lupus https://www.lupus.org/resources/medications-that-can-cause-drug-induced-lupus

Did your doctor consider that the infection may have stimulated an autoimmune response? Did you have an autoimmune diagnosis before Covid?

Hey Colleen,

Thank you for the resource. I’ll make sure to take a look. My doctor does know that I’m not taking any medication, however, I’m not sure if he considered an autoimmune response to COVID. I’ve never had an autoimmune diagnosis before testing positive for COVID. I did start experiencing the pain in my left wrist two weeks before I started experiencing COVID symptoms though so that might be why he didn’t suggest it. I’m not sure. He’s sending a referral to a rheumatologist so I can get a more specialized opinion.

How does the covid infection relate to your symptoms? Did your symptoms start before, during, or after having covid?
I haven't had your experience, but read last week that there now believed to be a viral cause of MS-- so it's not surprising, given the inflammatory nature of covid, that your immune system can go haywire

I contracted Covid four months ago. Since then it’s been one strange thing after another. Most recently I broke out in a rash all over my body. With my doctor away I went to the ER. They were very quick to say it was Lyme. I’m not convinced. they seemed to be basing that diagnosis on the fact that I had a fever followed by a rash. However, I also had cough, scratchy throat, muscle aches and pains, a very painful spine, abdominal pain, increased heart rate, dizziness etc… In fact every single one of my Covid symptoms accompanied the fever and rash. I think I’m having an auto immune response to Covid. I guess I’ll know for sure when the blood work comes back. Any thoughts?

The inflammation and pain in my left wrist started two weeks before I had any issues with COVID. Originally I thought the pain was due to overuse and a workout related injury since I do a lot of typing for work/pleasure and the pain started after a workout at the gym. However the strong positive levels of histone antibodies present in my blood made myself and my doctor more uncertain that the workout/overuse was the cause.

We are complicated creatures!! Good luck with learning more.

I have similar issues with Joint/Muscle Pain but with different variables. I had Covid in Feb 2020 (2 and a half years ago) and had symptoms all over the board including intermittent muscle/joint pain. Finally in August 2021 My PCP referred me to an Allergist. He immediately identified my constant flushing and heat intolerance to underlying hives with mast cell involvement and started me on Xolair shots. In looking back at my past medical history I probably always had an underlying auto-immune shin disorder. The hives resolved with the Xolair but I did not respond as expected. I continued to have debilitating symptoms that finally indicated Kidney Failure in my labs (GFR 14). By a fluke I had stopped my Lipitor (STATIN) a few weeks before we re-ran my labs and my labs improved by double. So, in retrospect, my PCP (who resigned as my doctor the same day my labs showed AKF) started me on Lipitor in June 2021. He ignored my symptoms and repeatedly turfed me to the Allergist. I was diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis by the Nephrologist. None of the Physicians seem to know much about Rhabdo. It causes severe joint and muscle pain and should resolve around 3 months after you stop taking the Statins. Instead, about 2 weeks in the joint and muscle pain went from occasional/intermittent to constant excruciating pain. I'm 8 weeks post stopping the statins and it's starting to subside a little now, but along with it I also have significant Angioedema in my shoulders, neck and face. This started Dec 2021 and was probably related to the Statins too.
Here's where I have questions no one can answer. Why would the muscle pain get worse? At this point I have to also question the possibility of IMNM (Immune-Mediated Necrotizing Myopathy) which is also caused by statins but unlike Rhabdo is auto-immune. This could change the recovery from 3 months to life-long. This is where I question of Covid's impact on our immune system could have triggered this as well. Considering Covid most likely triggered the skin disorder it seems likely it could also cause a Myositis disorder.
I asked the Allergist to run a Myositis panel including the specific anti-bodies but he ran a basic panel which did not include the specific HMGCR antibody test so my panel was negative.
So now I'm stuck. No referral to a Rheumatologist. I have to sit in bed for possibly another month to identify that the Rhabdo is/is not resolving. I tried Mayo but my POS PCP resigned and Mayo wont take me without a PCP. It takes 3 months to get a New Patient appointment for a "half-decent" PCP that may have knowledge of my illness. I have to basically start over. The sad thing is treatment is Prednisone and I could return to a fairly normal life. So simple. But someone has to take responsibility and diagnose and prescribe.

Auto-immune skin disorders seem to be very common with long covid. Don't be too surprised if your labs don't return anything that supports a diagnosis. Mine didn't. I was experiencing frequent flushes on my chest neck and face and intermittent rashes. I would flush so red I looked sunburned 15 times a day. My allergist pegged it really fast during my physical exam. The flushing was actually underlying hives. He diagnosed it as Hives with Mast Cell involvement.
He started me on Xolair allergy shots. It took a few months to get the levels high enough to get ahead of the inflammation. After that it knocked out a lot of my Long covid symptoms. Unfortunately the Statin reaction symptoms over lapped and we assumed Long Covid was causing more issues. Now that we have it all untangled hopefully the Statin reaction will slowly resolve.

Are you saying it was a separate condition? Perhaps even brought on by a weakened autoimmune system from having Long Covid?

You could possibly get around that wait time if you have a walk-in clinic near by and presented, in pain, and with all of your info and get that referral to a rheumatologist from them and then on to Mayo?