Speaker 1: The way, I would describe it as like an elephant
Speaker 1: setting on you. It was debilitating, and when you're expressing
Speaker 1: that something is wrong and you're afraid and people aren't listening,
Speaker 1: you don't really know what to do. There really was
Speaker 1: no one else to turn to. So I suffered in
Speaker 1: silence for a long time. Their doctor doesn't believe them,
Speaker 1: They've been told it's in their head, the symptoms, because
Speaker 1: they can be vague again, they come and go. It
Speaker 1: can take a huge emotional toll. That's living in a
Speaker 1: real nightmare. That's a horror movie happening in real life.
Speaker 1: How terrifying would it be to fight an unknown enemy,
Speaker 1: one you didn't recognize and didn't see coming. What if
Speaker 1: that enemy was coming from within a disease even doctors
Speaker 1: couldn't identify. Nearly half of all Americans suffer from some
Speaker 1: chronic illness, and many struggle for an accurate diagnosis. These
Speaker 1: are their stories. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is symptomatic.
Speaker 1: When you first meet niobe Rix, you immediately notice her subdued,
Speaker 1: approachable demeanor. I've heard that a lot lately, until you
Speaker 1: get her talking about music, especially throwback songs from the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. Her friends and family even used to
Speaker 1: call her the human Radio because she would know the
Speaker 1: lyrics to every song that came on. Her favorite snacks
Speaker 1: are Dipsy doodles and David sunflower seeds. She absolutely loves
Speaker 1: buttercrunch cookies but definitely doesn't mind if you have the
Speaker 1: last one. No, not at all. But after you see
Speaker 1: her kindness and love of music and baking, you also
Speaker 1: quickly pick up on a kind of determined strength underneath
Speaker 1: it all. Here's her husband, Kevin. Niobe is strong, she
Speaker 1: has a strong will, and she just has a big heart.
Speaker 1: Like even in the midst of everything that she's going through,
Speaker 1: she considers others. When Naobe turned thirteen, yep, just thirteen,
Speaker 1: she was going through the usual prepubescent teenage changes, but
Speaker 1: noticed something wasn't right. It started with irregular periods and
Speaker 1: pain and inflammation and swelling in my extremities. I was
Speaker 1: less active. You're a thirteen year old girl, you're active,
Speaker 1: you know, going out, playing sports. All of those things
Speaker 1: ceased to exist for me because I was just in
Speaker 1: too much aim to participate. The symptoms were far from
Speaker 1: normal and sadly far from being properly diagnosed. Naobe knew
Speaker 1: something wasn't right going through puberty. Didn't explain the pain
Speaker 1: and swelling in her arms and legs. This was something
Speaker 1: very different, something scary. Was there someone in your life
Speaker 1: that you shared those concerns with and what was the reaction?
Speaker 1: I told my mom and we went to the doctor. Um,
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed with anemia. So they said that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's probably growing pains and having anemia, could you know,
Speaker 1: lower your eye in so um my mother listened to
Speaker 1: the doctor instead of me. That must have been so
Speaker 1: difficult because you begin to feel like nobody believes you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. The symptoms got worse over time, and every
Speaker 1: time that I reported a new symptom, it always revered
Speaker 1: it back to the same thing. Well, it's hormonal changes
Speaker 1: in your body, and you're young, and you know it'll
Speaker 1: go away eventually. But the symptoms that I developed just
Speaker 1: weren't what you would consider normal for puberty. I started
Speaker 1: having pain throughout my entire body. I had partial paralysis
Speaker 1: from the waist down, and I had numbness and tingling
Speaker 1: and my fingers and toes. It started becoming so overwhelming
Speaker 1: for thirteen year old niobe that I got in the
Speaker 1: way of her being a kid. She was no longer
Speaker 1: able to do the simple things like hanging out with
Speaker 1: her friends. The treatments weren't working, so doubt over her
Speaker 1: anemia diagnosis started to creep in. I stayed home a
Speaker 1: lot because um I didn't want to go anywhere. I
Speaker 1: didn't make plans because I was afraid that if I
Speaker 1: made plans with my friends, I would suddenly have to cancel.
Speaker 1: Aren't noticed. I never knew how I was going to
Speaker 1: feel on a day to day basis. Was there an
Speaker 1: exact moment for you when you just had the realization
Speaker 1: that this isn't normal, no matter what I'm being told.
Speaker 1: I had various episodes of paralysis, but this particular episode,
Speaker 1: I couldn't feel anything from the waist down, and I
Speaker 1: was terrified of what was going on with me. I
Speaker 1: begged my mother. I said, I said, Mommy, please, there
Speaker 1: there's something wrong. I need to go to the doctor.
Speaker 1: And so she called an ambulance because she couldn't pick
Speaker 1: me up and I couldn't stand on my own. And
Speaker 1: we got to the hospital. The nurse took a needle
Speaker 1: and she poked my toes until they bled, they did
Speaker 1: no testing on me, and they thought that it was
Speaker 1: psychological and all in my head. But that's when I
Speaker 1: knew there is something wrong and if somebody doesn't listen
Speaker 1: to me, it can get really bad. That must have
Speaker 1: been terrifying. It was. And when you're expressing that something
Speaker 1: is wrong and you're afraid and people aren't listening, you
Speaker 1: don't really know what to do. I just I didn't
Speaker 1: know who to turn to, because there really was no
Speaker 1: one else to turn to. What in your mind did
Speaker 1: you think was happening in your own body? I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I honestly didn't know. I was trying to trust the
Speaker 1: doctors to help me figure it out. I just knew
Speaker 1: that whatever was happening wasn't normal, and the symptoms would
Speaker 1: come and go, so there was really no way for
Speaker 1: me to categorize what it was. She was caught in
Speaker 1: a frustrating cycle of doctors diagnosing her symptoms, even as
Speaker 1: her mother continued to place faith in their medical expertise,
Speaker 1: all while Naobe started to internalize it, questioning herself, even
Speaker 1: silencing herself because using her voice didn't seem to end
Speaker 1: in relief, only frustration. After all, the doctors had found
Speaker 1: what they felt were the answers to her problems. I
Speaker 1: stopped telling anybody about my symptoms because I felt that
Speaker 1: nobody was going to listen and that my concerns would
Speaker 1: be disregarded. So I suffered in silence for a long time,
Speaker 1: not just a long time ten years. She suffered in
Speaker 1: silence for ten years as this mystery disease continued to
Speaker 1: wreak havoc on her body and her life. So when
Speaker 1: did you go back to the doctors? At what point
Speaker 1: did you realize that you couldn't handle this on your
Speaker 1: own anymore? How old were you? I went back in
Speaker 1: my mid twenties, just before I had my first son,
Speaker 1: because I noticed some things. These were new things, and
Speaker 1: I got the same treatment. I was misdiagnosed with a
Speaker 1: variety of different diseases. Just throw some of those misdiagnoses
Speaker 1: at ring worm was one of them. Um, possible leukemia
Speaker 1: was another one. Arthritis for someone my age, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: go back to just even possible leukemia. That must have
Speaker 1: weighed so heavily on you, being a young about to
Speaker 1: become a young mom. Yeah it was. It was stressful,
Speaker 1: and I went for the testing suggested by the doctor
Speaker 1: and when it came back that it wasn't leukemi, and
Speaker 1: they still had no idea what was going on. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you just you go back to the drawing lord.
Speaker 1: Still no true diagnosis that explains how she's feeling. This
Speaker 1: mysterious illness keeps eluding doctors while the symptoms keep getting worse.
Speaker 1: For Niobe, when describing the pain, she hesitates a bit
Speaker 1: before answering, struggling to make herself remember such a difficult
Speaker 1: time and so it would it it? It? It varied,
Speaker 1: but the way I would describe it as like an
Speaker 1: elephant sitting on you, it was. It was debilitating. There
Speaker 1: were days that I could not get out of bed.
Speaker 1: Nyobe's husband, Kevin, remembers those days vividly. That's when he
Speaker 1: knew things had fallen to a new low and they
Speaker 1: needed to find an answer. That's not normal for anybody, right,
Speaker 1: even in our most I would say, withdrawn states, or
Speaker 1: our most exhausted states, right, most people can find a
Speaker 1: way to make it up and out of bed and
Speaker 1: you know, into a shower, into the kitchen. She couldn't,
Speaker 1: like physically, just could not at all. That's pretty much
Speaker 1: where it got real for everybody. It wasn't just oh,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong and you're gonna get treated. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this thing is here, and we have to deal with
Speaker 1: this way f really than anything we even anticipated. That
Speaker 1: was the realist moment for the whole family. All of
Speaker 1: this piled onto Naobe and her family over the next
Speaker 1: few years, but even though there were some bright moments,
Speaker 1: like the birth of their second child, a daughter, much
Speaker 1: of their day to day lives was overshadowed by her illness.
Speaker 1: Her symptoms came back even stronger than before. I had
Speaker 1: my daughter in December of two thousand and seven, and
Speaker 1: by early January of two thousand and nine, I felt
Speaker 1: like my body was breaking down on me. I had
Speaker 1: developed a rash that seemed to last for months. What
Speaker 1: was the rash like and how did it present? Initially
Speaker 1: I had it across the bridge of my nose and
Speaker 1: it was kind of just red and bumpy. But then
Speaker 1: I developed rashes on other parts of my by you,
Speaker 1: like my arms and my legs, and I had gone
Speaker 1: to the doctor and I showed them and the doctor
Speaker 1: wasn't sure what it was, and he referred me to
Speaker 1: a dermatologist who once again told me I had ring work.
Speaker 1: Yet again, Naobe finds herself in the same place as before,
Speaker 1: worsening symptoms and no closer to a diagnosis. She's trying
Speaker 1: her best as a young mom to be present for
Speaker 1: her kids. Naobe reaches a breaking point. I had a
Speaker 1: had a scary episode. I was driving and I went
Speaker 1: to get to Starnwell and I couldn't close my fist
Speaker 1: around it. I didn't really know what to do. I
Speaker 1: drove myself to the emergency room using my knees. That's
Speaker 1: That's one of those ones that it's tough to revisit
Speaker 1: because just just think about the nature of that in general, right,
Speaker 1: not being able to use any extremity of your body
Speaker 1: to do something as simple as drive. That's scary enough
Speaker 1: in itself, and then to be also having something else
Speaker 1: happened to you on the inside while that thing is
Speaker 1: also happening to you. That's living a real nightmare. That's
Speaker 1: a horror movie happening in real life. So um trauma
Speaker 1: is the only word I could probably use for that.
Speaker 1: That really scared me because if I had my kids
Speaker 1: in the car, you know, anything could have happened. And
Speaker 1: I knew at that point that I needed to figure
Speaker 1: out what was going on with me. I could no
Speaker 1: longer ignore what I was going through. I had to
Speaker 1: find answers. We'll be right back with some amatic, a
Speaker 1: medical mystery podcast. Now back to Symptomatic, a medical mystery podcast.
Speaker 1: I needed to figure out how to find out what
Speaker 1: was going on with me. Naobe Rix had been battling
Speaker 1: a puzzling illness for almost two decades, more than half
Speaker 1: of her life, without any answers as to what it
Speaker 1: is or treatments that seemed to help her. Symptoms debilitating pain,
Speaker 1: swelling and exhaustion throughout her body, temporary partial paralysis and
Speaker 1: loss of motor control, rashes coming and going on different
Speaker 1: parts of her body. But then she had a breakthrough.
Speaker 1: It was my kind of cologists who first noticed that
Speaker 1: there was something wrong. I went to her from my
Speaker 1: yearly checkup and this particular year, she got the test
Speaker 1: results back and they were extremely abnormal. She did what
Speaker 1: they call a complete blood count, which is CBC, and
Speaker 1: my platelet count was lower than it should be. So
Speaker 1: she called me. She told me she wanted to redo
Speaker 1: the test just in case there was an issue with
Speaker 1: the lab or something, and so she redid the test
Speaker 1: and the test results were lower than they were the
Speaker 1: first time. She said, I'm gonna refer you to a doctor,
Speaker 1: but I want to repeat the test, so by the
Speaker 1: time you go see the doctor will have new results
Speaker 1: and the test results are lower than they were the
Speaker 1: first two times, and so now there's a real concern.
Speaker 1: She also referred me to a hematologist. They wanted to
Speaker 1: check and make sure there weren't any blood issues and
Speaker 1: things like that. So I'm going through this battery of testing.
Speaker 1: Going back to the drawing board through a series of
Speaker 1: tests was something Mayobi was very used to at this point,
Speaker 1: and it happened so many times over the past two decades,
Speaker 1: all resulting in the same thing. No diagnosis that felt correct,
Speaker 1: no treatments that worked, no doctors taking her seriously. But
Speaker 1: this time, this time felt different. I don't know what's
Speaker 1: wrong with me, but I go and see the doctor
Speaker 1: that she referred me to, ironically, a black female doctor
Speaker 1: who asked all the questions no other doctor had asked me.
Speaker 1: I finally felt like I had somebody who was listening
Speaker 1: to me, someone who was invested in finding out what
Speaker 1: was wrong with me, who cared as much about my
Speaker 1: health as I did. She took into account, you know,
Speaker 1: my family history, as opposed to feeling like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is just another round of b S and I'm going
Speaker 1: to get the same results. I felt different speaking with
Speaker 1: this doctor, and not only because you know, she looks
Speaker 1: like me, but because she asked questions no other doctor
Speaker 1: had ever asked. A light at the end of the
Speaker 1: tunnel is starting to shine or her on her journey
Speaker 1: to finding her diagnosis, some real tangible hope, to finally
Speaker 1: getting some answers, taking her symptoms and experiences and getting
Speaker 1: a sense of the real picture. Was this doctor finally
Speaker 1: putting these pieces into the right puzzle. Naobi heads to
Speaker 1: her hematologists to hopefully get some answers. And so I
Speaker 1: go into his office after the physical exam and we
Speaker 1: sit down and he's going through the paperwork and he goes, okay,
Speaker 1: so I have Olivia test results. He says, I see
Speaker 1: you've tested positive philopus And I go excuse me. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's positive. And I'm looking at him like a
Speaker 1: deer in headlights, like, so, what are you saying to me?
Speaker 1: And I think he realizes that I didn't know, and
Speaker 1: he goes, okay, So let me explain to you what
Speaker 1: this is, because he's talking to me like I know.
Speaker 1: After nearly two decades, Naobe finally has an answer, a
Speaker 1: name to the unknown enemy she's been battling for most
Speaker 1: her life. So what is lupus? To help us understand,
Speaker 1: here is Lecticia gn the manager of Health Education and
Speaker 1: Hispanic Outreach for the Lupus Foundation of America. What we
Speaker 1: know is systemic lupus arithmatosis is a chronic automated disease.
Speaker 1: This means it's lifelong. And in lupus, the immune system
Speaker 1: which is supposed to protect us against foreign invaders like
Speaker 1: bacteria and viruses, in lupus, it doesn't work that way. Instead,
Speaker 1: the immune system attacks the healthy tissue of the individual
Speaker 1: and this causes inflammation, pain, and damage. And lupus can
Speaker 1: affect a person's joints, skin, the kidneys, the heart, the blood,
Speaker 1: the brain, among many other systems. So it's very cruel
Speaker 1: disease and very diverse and how it can affect a person.
Speaker 1: And why did it take so long for Naote to
Speaker 1: get a diagnosis? Is she an outlier for the lupus
Speaker 1: community or is this commonplace? A lupus diagnosis isn't easy,
Speaker 1: and there's several reasons for that. The science and symptoms
Speaker 1: can appear and disappear, and change over time in the person.
Speaker 1: They vary from person to person depending on which body
Speaker 1: part it's affecting. The signs and symptoms can mimic those
Speaker 1: found in other illnesses such as rheumat arthritis, fibramyalgia, and
Speaker 1: healthcare providers may not be familiar with lupus and symptoms
Speaker 1: and not be able to recognize them. And also, there's
Speaker 1: no definitive test for lupus. All these things pose a
Speaker 1: challenge to a prompt diagnosis. Yeah, I felt some relief,
Speaker 1: but then I also felt scared because now what Yes,
Speaker 1: I know what this is. I finally have an answer.
Speaker 1: Nineteen years later, I have an answer, But now what
Speaker 1: do I do? What's next? Because again I had all
Speaker 1: of these new symptoms coming about? Is this the reason
Speaker 1: why I literally didn't know what to do, what to expect?
Speaker 1: You know what was going to happen. So we're still
Speaker 1: relatively young, and you know, you've got all these hopes
Speaker 1: and dreams, and you think life is going to be
Speaker 1: this one thing and then bam, it just turned into
Speaker 1: something completely different, and you have to make a hard left,
Speaker 1: whether you're prepared to or not, and I I was
Speaker 1: not prepared to make the hard left at that moment.
Speaker 1: Relief and fear, that's what's running through their heads. But
Speaker 1: this is very much the start of her battle and
Speaker 1: journey with lupus. Now, Niobe is referred to a rheumatologist
Speaker 1: to find out just how far her lupus has progressed
Speaker 1: and how she and Kevin must change their lives to
Speaker 1: with it. He determined that the lupus was affecting my
Speaker 1: kidneys as well as my brain. Not only do I
Speaker 1: have symptomatic lupus, but I have lupus nephritis, which is
Speaker 1: affecting my kidneys as well as cn S lupus, which
Speaker 1: is affecting my nervous system my brain, which kind of
Speaker 1: explained some of my behavioral issues that I, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't really aware of. Lupus was overwhelming her body.
Speaker 1: You would think that having a proper diagnosis would have
Speaker 1: brought more relief and immediate treatment, but things would get
Speaker 1: much worse for her before they would get better. Depression, anxiety.
Speaker 1: I definitely didn't feel like myself. I had cognitive issues,
Speaker 1: so I was very forgetful or confused people repeating things
Speaker 1: to me for me to understand them. I would forget
Speaker 1: basic words. I started forgetting names, and it was really
Speaker 1: scary for me because I was talking to my niece
Speaker 1: and I could not remember her name, someone I've known
Speaker 1: since birth, and I could not remember her name. And
Speaker 1: it made me scared because how long has this been
Speaker 1: going on that I may be unaware of that people
Speaker 1: around me may have noticed but didn't say anything. There
Speaker 1: were these moments where I'm like, Okay, is she gonna
Speaker 1: forget us? Is it gonna get that bad? You know,
Speaker 1: because you don't know everything speculative right because it's new
Speaker 1: and you're navigating the waters the best you can and
Speaker 1: you're not always getting clear answers. So it's like, how
Speaker 1: far does this thing go? Because it's not the same
Speaker 1: for everybody, So where does this land for us? And
Speaker 1: then what does that look like in terms of care
Speaker 1: and treatment going forward? Are we even prepared for this?
Speaker 1: You know? With the symptoms getting worse by the month,
Speaker 1: Niobe started reverting back to her days of suffering in silence.
Speaker 1: The strain on her family and support network crew her
Speaker 1: symptoms were so bad that there were days that she
Speaker 1: couldn't even get out of bed, let alone be there
Speaker 1: for her kids or husband and the way she truly wanted.
Speaker 1: We all had to learn that there are levels to
Speaker 1: this disease. It's not one size fits all. There are
Speaker 1: days where you can see, you know she wants to
Speaker 1: do things. You know she wants to be active, or
Speaker 1: she may be in a mood to do something as
Speaker 1: simple as bake cookies, but there's no energy for it
Speaker 1: because she's completely fatigued. The biggest misconception is, and it's
Speaker 1: very painful for people, is that people with lupas will
Speaker 1: look like they have lupus. The symptoms, you know, you
Speaker 1: cannot see them, and so they will be fatigue, they
Speaker 1: will be in pain, and when they express this, they're
Speaker 1: not believed. No one knows us better than Niobe. Over
Speaker 1: half of her life has been spent searching for answers
Speaker 1: to questions that people kept ignoring or downplaying. With my mom.
Speaker 1: She she apologized for not knowing, and I didn't falter
Speaker 1: her because again, you're a single parent, you're raising you know,
Speaker 1: three girls, you're working, and you're doing what you can.
Speaker 1: You're doing everything to the best of your ability. And
Speaker 1: she relied on the doctors that she took me to
Speaker 1: to advise her on what was going on with me.
Speaker 1: I never held any of that against her. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, it can take a huge emotional toll.
Speaker 1: We've spoken with people who say their doctor doesn't believe them.
Speaker 1: They've been told it's in their head, the symptoms because
Speaker 1: they can be vague. Again, they come and go, and
Speaker 1: the family members don't know about lupus, may not have
Speaker 1: heard about lupus or no anyone else. And now you're
Speaker 1: adding that stress right to the physical toll that lucas
Speaker 1: takes on people. So that was a diagnosis that was
Speaker 1: nineteen years in the making. How many doctors do you
Speaker 1: figure you saw in that time period, anywhere from eight
Speaker 1: to twelve, and that includes specialists. What do you think
Speaker 1: contributed to that? Was it your age, your gender? You know?
Speaker 1: Was it a race thing? Looking back now, I definitely
Speaker 1: think that it had a lot to do with my
Speaker 1: age in my race. Being young, people just don't take
Speaker 1: you seriously, and when you come from low income families,
Speaker 1: they just disregard a lot of the things that you
Speaker 1: have to say because either you're making it up, or
Speaker 1: if you do have something, you can afford the treatment.
Speaker 1: So you know why even bother she's had to experience
Speaker 1: mistrust and disloyalty from people and entities that should have
Speaker 1: protected her, should have cared for her, should have been
Speaker 1: trying to alleviate some of what she was experiencing. So
Speaker 1: there's that part that she's going to have to carry
Speaker 1: with her. It's now been twelve years since her diagnosis,
Speaker 1: her kids are teenagers, and Naobe works with the Lupus
Speaker 1: Foundation of America to raise awareness for the disease that
Speaker 1: sent her on an emotional and physical roller coaster. So
Speaker 1: now my lucas is manageable. I'm not in remission, so
Speaker 1: my disease so active, but I've been able to find
Speaker 1: the right combination of medications that helped me maintain the
Speaker 1: disease activity until prayerfully, it goes into remission or just
Speaker 1: goes away and never comes back. You know, she couldn't
Speaker 1: even imagine dancing because two minutes of dancing was ten
Speaker 1: days of pain. But now she can. So as we
Speaker 1: see her progress based on getting proper treatment, getting a
Speaker 1: proper care, getting proper medication, becoming more active the future
Speaker 1: looks bright for Niobe and for the family as well.
Speaker 1: You know, grandkids will be able to dance with grandma
Speaker 1: at some point, right, So that's a pretty cool thing
Speaker 1: to imagine when not that long ago that wasn't something
Speaker 1: that would have been a thought of ours. What is
Speaker 1: truly amazing about Naobe is her positivity and determination to
Speaker 1: use her story to help other people. There was very
Speaker 1: little sense of animosity towards specific people who made this
Speaker 1: journey more difficult. There was very little feeling of giving up,
Speaker 1: always just putting one foot in front of the other
Speaker 1: with a sense of person self belief. Yes, yes, her
Speaker 1: loopy's as they call each other. Uh man, she's like
Speaker 1: a big deal. Like you know, we go to the
Speaker 1: walks or to the events and they light up when
Speaker 1: they see her and it's hugs and oh man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like the popular kid in the loopy school for real,
Speaker 1: big advocate. She's always pushing forward. She's not afraid to
Speaker 1: speak out against the things that are being done wrong.
Speaker 1: She shares any any information she gets and goes right
Speaker 1: to the l f A so she can help other
Speaker 1: people who are dealing with what she's dealing with. She
Speaker 1: communicates with people from all over the country in the
Speaker 1: world that she's never even met, but she treats them
Speaker 1: like friends and like family because she understands what they're
Speaker 1: dealing with. What I always say is this, be your
Speaker 1: own advocate. To advocate for yourself is very important. I
Speaker 1: also suggest that anyone who thinks that they might have
Speaker 1: lupus or experience symptoms of lupus let your doctor know
Speaker 1: and that they can always get more information on lupus
Speaker 1: at lupas dot org. For nineteen years, Naobie Rick suffered
Speaker 1: with ever changing symptoms from a mystery illness, swelling and
Speaker 1: pain in her arms and legs, temporary partial paralysis at times,
Speaker 1: aches all over her body to the point she couldn't
Speaker 1: get out of bed. She persisted through doctors that never
Speaker 1: seemed to fully understand her suffering, and when she was
Speaker 1: finally diagnosed with lupus, her symptoms became worse, almost stabilitating.
Speaker 1: But luckily, with the support of her family and new doctor,
Speaker 1: she was able to find a set of treatments to
Speaker 1: manage her symptoms, a set of treatments that allows her
Speaker 1: to get back up and dance to nineties R and
Speaker 1: B just like she did as a kid. I'm Naobi
Speaker 1: Ricks and for nineteen years I struggled with a disease
Speaker 1: that was misdiagnosed. Yeah. To find out more information, visit
Speaker 1: the Lupus Foundation of America at lupus dot org. Symptomatic
Speaker 1: a Medical Mystery Podcast is an original podcast from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Are shows hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Matt Romano and myself. Our EP of
Speaker 1: post production is James Foster. Our producers are Crra Kaiser
Speaker 1: and John Irwin.