Butterfly Rash

It's summer in New Zealand, and for me summer means bad flares.

According to the stats, a lot of people end up on this blog after image searching butterfly rash, malar rash, SLE rash or some other variant of the same thing. They end up on this post I wrote when first diagnosed with lupus, and I'm pretty sure a picture of me in face paint is not really what they're looking for. 

I've been meaning for a while to post a proper picture of the butterfly rash I get, but it's been a little difficult to get a decent photo. Mainly because when it's bad enough to warrant a photo, I'm usually pretty unwell and don't have the energy to try very hard. The rest of the time, the rash doesn't look that different to sunburn or rosy colouring so there seems little point in capturing it on film. I've got an appointment with my dermatologist coming up, so when it came up badly on Saturday night I took this photo.

Butterfly/malar rash

The lighting's in this picture isn't great but you can still sort of see the redness and swelling across my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. For me, it comes up very intensely at night but is usually not too bad during the day. 

Little Miss Autoimmune