For nearly ten years mother-of-two Allison Figureido had been plagued with health problems.She was grappling with breathing trouble, loss of sight in one eye, joint pain, a severe facial rash, anaemia and hair loss. She was diagnosed with everything from multiple sclerosis to shingles to a cardiac condition until one day in 2006 she learned it was lupus.Mrs Figureido says she normally shies away from the spotlight, but she bravely spoke to The Royal Gazette in a bid to educate the public about the disease as part of Lupus Awareness Month.“I am not doing it for pity, I am just doing it for awareness because people do not understand,” she said.Lupus is described as an autoimmune disease and can potentially damage any part of the body from the skin, to the joints and the organs.In a healthy person the immune system serves to produce antibodies that fight off viruses, bacteria and germs but for people with lupus, their immune system can’t tell the difference between these invaders and the body’s healthy tissues thus destroying both.Mrs Figureido had been dealing with symptoms for nearly a decade before being formally diagnosed by a rheumatologist in the United States.She was on vacation with her husband Tim at the time. He had gone to a nearby mall and she decided to relax in the hotel room.“All of a sudden my heart started to act up. I got up hoping it would go away, but then darkness started to come from the outside edges [of my eyes] and I thought, ‘I cannot be in this room by myself if I am about to pass out’.”She left her room and knocked on a nearby hotel door. As fate would have it a cardiac nurse answered, got Mrs Figureido back into her room and called an ambulance.“All I kept saying to myself is, ‘God, please do not let me die alone’,” she said.It was during that time at Lahey Clinic in Boston when the now 40-year-old was diagnosed with lupus.The illness is classified by a series of flares, when the symptoms increase, and remission, when the sufferer feels better.It is potentially life-threatening and women of colour are nearly three times as likely to develop it. The disease also has different stages and levels of severity.Mrs Figureido said she has a moderate case of the illness and currently takes six different medications a day.With the help of prescription drugs she lives a relatively normal life, however, she sometimes experiences brain fog, nausea, vertigo (where it feels as if the world is spinning) and problems with swallowing and sight.She has also recently developed alopecia, an excessive hair loss condition, and said she sometimes gets mistaken for a cancer patient.“I have to be worried about the wind direction when it’s blowing and things like that [when wearing a wig].“I feel very self-conscious,” she said. “When I wash my hair, I make sure all the lights are off in the bathroom.”Another challenging symptom is insomnia; she admits to sometimes going 48 hours without a wink of sleep.She said many lupus sufferers are afraid of sounding like hypochondriacs because the disease can affect so many areas and organs of the body.Even after a formal diagnosis she kept it to herself because she didn’t want to feel judged by others or have to worry about people limiting her because of the disease.“I’m more secretive about myself and what I go through because I don’t want people to judge me. I don’t want to be labelled a sick person because I worry people won’t take me seriously.”She said her saving grace has been her husband and two sons Nathan, 13, and Neil, 11. “The boys have handled it pretty well and I think it’s making them better people for it so they can empathise with what different people go through.”Breast Cancer Awareness tends to take centre stage every October; Mrs Figureido wants people to see there are other diseases that need attention and support.“I want people to know there are people with other health illnesses in Bermuda that are making their way through and still viable in the community and not defined by what they have.”For more information on lupus or to join the Lupus Association of Bermuda call 799-1081.