Antimalarials can be a life saver for those with lupus. With all the hype about their potential benefit in Covid-19 treatment, I thought I’d share my own experience as I’ve taken them (all!) several times. This isn’t an effort to discourage their use, but to warn you that even at low doses, this isn’t a medication you want to take without medical supervision.
I was diagnosed with systemic lupus Erythematosus back in 1998, and discoid lupus in 1993. My mother and aunt were also diagnosed with SLE shortly thereafter.
All of us were put on antimalarials in the first few years of our disease process, but none of us were able to tolerate any version of the antimalarials available then (I think we tried two or three, but I distinctly remember hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine) .
We all experienced similar symptoms that made taking the meds impossible: nausea, headaches, vision problems (in my case so severe I couldn’t see well enough to read or drive and I still had 20/10 vision back then), dizziness, extreme fatigue and a bunch of other uncomfortable symptoms. We tried cutting down to 25% of the standard dosage, but none of us were able to tolerate the medications or any variant available at the time. Over the years I tried it a few more times but had the same response.
For some scientific background on how antimalarials came to be and how they might impact Covid-19, I think this is a really good read by Derek Lowe of Science Translational Medicine, click on the link or the image:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/20/chloroquine-past-and-present
