Up until it nearly killed her, Dr. Chantrise Holliman was not worried about the harm lupus could do to her heart. The educator had been diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder in 2006, when she was in her early 30s, after a doctor realized it was what had been causing the excruciating pain in her joints.
But despite occasional flare-ups – a rash on her upper arm, swelling in her hands – Holliman figured she was in pretty good shape. After all, she was running half-marathons and watching her diet. "I was eating the kale," said Holliman, who lives in Savannah, Georgia.
"And I thought I was healthy, until I almost died." The heart attack came in 2018. Doctors told her that it wasn't from traditional heart disease – her blood pressure and cholesterol levels, in fact, had been fine.
Still, an artery was blocked. And that was how she found out that lupus poses serious risks to the heart. "I began to learn that years of not taking the medicine I needed to take for my lupus, missing doctor's appointments, not managing the lupus the way that I needed to, had done damage," she said.
"And that's where that one blocked artery came from. But I didn't know any of that. Until I had my heart attack.
" Cardiovascular problems are common with lupus, experts say. Lupus turns the body's immune system, which protects against viruses and bacteria, against itself, said Dr. Maureen McMahon, a professor of medicine and rheumatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of Calif.
