Lupus erythematosus
Lupus erythematosus', also called 'lupus', is a disease. It is chronic, which means it does not go away. The immune system is made up of white blood cells in your body that fight off disease. Lupus makes these white blood cells think that the healthy cells of the body around them are diseased, so they end up attacking healthy parts of the body. Lupus can be deadly. Lupus causes swelling and tissue damage, and can attack any part of the body. There is treatment for lupus, called immunosuppression, which is medicine that stops the white blood cells from damaging healthy cells for a while. After a while, this medicine wears off, and then the white blood cells go back to hurting healthy parts of the body again. For the disease of lupus, there is no cure that stops the white blood cells from attacking healthy parts of the body forever, but doctors are not giving up on finding a cure.