Thinking oneself healthy or sickly?

​The iPhone ringtone breaks the silence of the bedroom. I usually pop straight up when the alarm goes off, but the eyelids feels unbelievably heavy today. The body feels tough, heavy and requires 15 minutes to recover from sleep before it's functional. A giant yawn and a few stretches later, I'm finally in an upright position on my way to the bathroom. The rash is blooming over my cheekbones and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. There is a feeling of "something" festering in the body. The mouth ulcer has come alive again, but luckily the showerdrain remains empty. The incredible flow and energy I've felt lately are slowly schreeching to a halt this week. It's in the fickle nature of the disease to fluctuate like waves and I suspect that I'm about to become acquainted with going down the wave again. "The Lupus Encyclopedia" is delivered on my doormat this Friday morning. It looks thicker and more detailed than expected and it pleases my information-seeking nerdy heart. When you first start reading a bit about the immune system, it is actually incredibly fascinating.

You´re advised to familiarize yourself with, and read a little about the disease, but there's a limit to how much information you really need. I told myself early on that I should first and foremost focus on the symptoms I have been diagnosed with and not everything else. On one hand, I want to know enough to take sensible precautions, on the other hand I don't want to dig so far into the matter that I start to look for symptoms and signs of illness. In a way, I've already experienced that I can't think myself healthy. Living under the impression that I was completely healthy this fall, overlooking all the symptoms, didn't make me any healthier. But I strongly believe that both our positive and negative thoughts can effect the body physically. There are studies on both the placebo effect and the nocebo effect that indicate both positive / negative expectations can affect the effect of treatment. I think this is useful to keep in mind when trying to find a balance between managing symptoms and precautions and living as normal as possible. So for now I will try to put aside the idea that there is "something" festering in the body, until the doctor and the blood tests say otherwise.

Sources:
https://forskning.no/sykdommer-psykologi/du-kan-tenke-deg-syk/779562
https://forskning.no/menneskekroppen-medisiner-ny/bivirkningene-ble-verre-da-pasientene-trodde-de-fikk-dyr-medisin/316475
https://tidsskriftet.no/2019/08/debatt/leger-har-placeboeffekt
https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/is-the-nocebo-effect-hurting-your-health#1
https://www.webpsykologen.no/artikler/noceboeffekten/