Health Conditions / Autoimmune Diseases / Lupus

When you’re living with a chronic condition, finding the right treatment makes a huge difference in your day-to-day life. Still, most medications, as beneficial as they can be, come with trade-offs—including potential side effects that take some getting used to. That’s something Selena Gomez has faced publicly for years.The 30-year-old singer has lupus, an autoimmune condition that causes chronic inflammation in many parts of the body, like the skin, joints, heart, kidneys, lungs, and more. This leads to a spectrum of symptoms and possible complications, like persistent pain, overwhelming fatigue, skin rashes, frequent fevers, kidney damage, heart problems, and mental health disorders like depression, among others. Though her health is nobody’s business, Gomez has been open about her condition and how it affects her physically and emotionally. “My lupus, my kidney transplant, chemotherapy, having a mental illness, going through very public heartbreaks—these were all things that honestly should have taken me down,” she told Elle in 2021. But she would think to herself: “‘You’re going to help people,’” she recalled. “That’s really what kept me going. She’s still staying true to that sentiment. Recently, the Rare Beauty founder addressed the relentless, unsolicited comments she’s been receiving about her body—which, to be clear, is a topic no one should ever need to explain. During a livestream on TikTok, which was later posted on Twitter, Gomez said she tends “to hold a lot of water weight” when she’s taking a certain medication, though she didn’t specify the type. “I just wanted to…encourage anyone out there who feels any sort of shame for exactly what they’re going through, and no one knows the real story,” she said. There are various medications that can help treat lupus, and they all come with potential side effects that go beyond weight fluctuation.Lupus impacts each person differently, so medication regimens are also “highly individualized,” Margo Bowman, PharmD, director of clinical pharmacy services at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan, tells SELF. Many people with lupus are on hydroxychloroquine, a disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD), which helps control inflammation and lower the risk of flare-ups, or periods when the disease is active and causing symptoms, Lynn Ludmer, MD, medical director of the department of rheumatology at Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center, tells SELF. “It has been known to increase lifespan and decrease the risk of brain and kidney disease,” she says. “After that, it depends on the particular kind of lupus a person has, and the right medication varies from person to person.” Corticosteroids may also be used short-term to fight inflammation and control symptoms. “These medicines are very important to allow us to ‘put out the fire’ immediately,” Dr. Ludmer says. They’re pretty potent drugs, so experts try to prescribe them at “the lowest dose for the shortest amount of time,” she adds. That’s because long-term use of corticosteroids is linked to a slew of potential side effects—and some degree of weight fluctuation is one that many people taking them experience, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. 

Selena Gomez is holding nothing back in the upcoming documentary about her life. On Monday, October 10, the full trailer for Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me dropped, and the video teases an emotional, very up-close and personal look at Gomez’s life and career along with her medical and mental health journeys. The trailer dropped today in honor of World Mental Health Day.“Just be who you are Selena,” the singer says in the clip. “No one cares about what you’re doing. It’s about who I am, being okay with where I am. I am grateful to be alive.”At another point in the emotional trailer she says, “Everything that I have gone through, it’s going to be there. I’m just making it my friend now. I know this is the beginning for me.”Apple TV+ offers the following official description of the doc: “After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.”The documentary, which includes footage from six years of Gomez’s life, is directed by Alek Keshishian and will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on Friday, November 4. Keshishian directed the critically acclaimed 1991 film Madonna: Truth or Dare. That doc followed Madonna on her 1990 Blonde Ambition World Tour. Until 2002’s Bowling for Columbine, Truth or Dare was the highest grossing documentary of all time. Keshishian also directed Gomez’s 2015 music video for “Hands to Myself.”Throughout this documented period of Gomez’s life, the singer, actor, and activist went through a lot including a public breakup with singer Justin Bieber and a kidney transplant due to lupus. During this time she spoke also spoke publicly and candidly about struggling with her mental health. See the full trailer for My Mind and Me here:ContentThis content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.In September, Apple TV+ released a teaser for My Mind & Me shortly after it announced the project earlier in the month. It promises to offer a fascinating look at the life of a star, who has accomplished so much before her 30th birthday: Not only has Selena Gomez sold 210 million singles worldwide, she has achieved critical acclaim for her performance on the series Only Murders in the Building, and her makeup company, Rare Beauty, has also been well received.This article was originally published on Glamour.

According to a May 24 report by Christina Cauterucci in Slate, some pharmacists in Texas were already unsure—even before Roe was officially overturned—if they should fill prescriptions for methotrexate now, in part because a Texas law has specifically named the medication as “abortion-inducing.”It’s true that methotrexate is used to treat ectopic pregnancies, which occur when a fetus develops outside the uterus; they aren’t viable pregnancies. But methotrexate is used primarily to treat people with debilitating conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, Cuoghi Edens, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, tells SELF. There are five million methotrexate prescriptions each year in the U.S. and only about 100,000 ectopic pregnancies, Dr. Edens notes, adding,“Methotrexate is really the standard of care.”In the context of rheumatoid arthritis, it’s an extremely common drug: About 90% of patients take it at some point to manage symptoms, according to the Arthritis Foundation. It is often prescribed as pills; if these don’t provide relief, a provider may suggest a shot of the medication under the skin.Methotrexate also isn’t new: It was developed in the 1940s as a cancer treatment, according to the Arthritis Foundation, and Dr. Edens says it’s been used to treat both children and adults for decades. However, access may be limited in different ways as healthcare providers try navigating a post-Roe world. Doctors may be more hesitant to prescribe it to people capable of becoming pregnant—including children who are technically in this category—and pharmacists may be more hesitant to fill the prescriptions that do get written. Dr. Edens says she recently got a call from a colleague in Texas who told her about an 8-year-old girl who couldn’t access methotrexate because a pharmacist refused to fill her prescription for it. “This is going to negatively affect children,” Dr. Edens says, adding that patients who can’t access their methotrexate may be in more physical pain as a result. Additionally, limiting access to methotrexate could cause problems with other treatment options, since insurance companies often require patients to try methotrexate first before they agree to cover other treatment options, Dr. Edens says.One 27-year-old lupus patient in Virginia, Becky Schwarz, spoke with Newsweek after finding out methotrexate was no longer available to her. Shwarz says lupus takes a toll on her everyday life, making it difficult to walk for an extended period of time or stand for the duration of a shower. However, methotrexate provides relief for her symptoms: “I can go more consecutive days without pain than before [taking methotrexate], and on the days I am in pain, it isn’t as severe as it was,” she told Newsweek. In a June 30th tweet, Schwarz said: “Roe was overturned 6 days ago. in less than one week i lost access to healthcare that i need because the drug could be used to induce abortions.”