Annamill sez: "You talk to her!" Well, okayyyy...

Hey, Amy, I don't have MS myself but I do have another autoimmune disease, lupus (SLE – systemic lupus erythematosus – which is even harder to spell than Multiple Schlerosis). I was diagnosed in my early 20's, and I'm 46 now; I've been on various medications, some more successful at treating the symptoms than others. But, just as with MS, there ain't no cure, and I've had to learn to live with it and alter my lifestyle to minimize the risk of complications. But one complication hit me anyway: I developed another autoimmune disease – sarcoidosis – after living with a smoking boyfriend for eight years.

I had never even taken up the cigarette-smoking habit myself, but I slowly developed breathing problems anyway over the course of those eight years, and was finally taken to the emergency room after a severe attack that mimicked symptoms of a heart attack. Initial tests seemed to indicate that I might have had lung cancer. After weeks of more tests (at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia) that included a lung biopsy, it was determined that the lumps that were seen in the x-rays and MRI's were actually nodules that were growing inside my lungs, a symptom of sarcoidosis.

The pulmonary specialist at Jefferson put me on a regimen of steroid inhalers and ordered me to avoid all chemical fumes, perfumes, and cigarette smoke (first- or second-hand). My boyfriend refused to believe that he could no longer smoke in the apartment; I had to get the doctor to write out his orders so I could have proof to show to the boyfriend. The final result of that was that less than two months later he and I broke up and I was looking for another apartment to move to.

Since then (and that was 6 years ago), I've had two more visits to the emergency room with breathing attacks, and I continue to live with and try to control the symptoms of sarcoidosis in addition to the symptoms of lupus. As part of that attempt at symptom-control, I spend most of the summer cooped up in air-conditioning instead of enjoying weekend music festivals and the like. And my enjoyment of singing has been affected because, of course, I don't have the lung capacity that I used to have.

The reason I'm telling you this is to say that I hope you'll learn from my mistake. Immune systems like yours and mine don't react properly to outside "invaders" like the chemicals that make up cigarette smoke, so in addition to the usual risks of smoking that everyone else runs, we whose bodies attack our own tissues have additional risks all our own.

And I gotta tell ya, the tests for those risks alone ain't worth it – I would not wish a lung biopsy on ANYBODY. See, first they stick the fiber-optic tube up your nose, then down your throat. gagging you as they push it past your vocal cords, then down into your lung where, even with the topical anesthesia sprayed from the tube, you can feel the tug when they pull off the biopsy tissue... while you're trying to breathe around the tube in your throat and lung... after which you cough up bits of blood for days...

So, Amy, please, quit smoking now – not "while you're ahead", exactly, but before you make things worse for yourself down the road... before the smoking triggers your immune system to go haywire in new ways. There are plenty of healthy alternatives for dealing with stress. And believe you me, the stress of dealing with a second autoimmune disease – the stress of the diagnosis, the stress of the treatment and the periodic check-up tests, the stress of living with MORE symptoms than you had with just one disease – is stress you don't need.