Hi! My name is Emilia. The spring of 2014 changed my life forever. I was diagnosed with a disease called Lupus. Two years later I was diagnosed with Osteoarthritis.
 What is Lupus? It's when your immune system attacks its own body. My immune system attacked my kidneys, creating a hole, causing unhealthy levels of protein to flow thru out my body. This caused serious swelling in my legs, feet, and stomach.
           The beginning of my treatment was very hard, and stressful. I was on medication for about two and a half years. One medication that did some major damage to my body is a medication called Prednisone. Prednisone caused my face to swell up as you can imagine, this was very uncomfortable. Kids at school would make fun of me and talk behind my back. I didn't want to go back to school.
           When I finally finished taking Prednisone it left my entire body covered in stretch marks. Soon after, my back started to hurt really bad, and it only kept getting worse. I was still going to school and carrying my back pack. I went to the doctor's and took some MRI's. The MRI's showed that I had a compresstion frature of L1 lumbar vertebra. This was most likely caused by Prednisone. Prednisone caused weakness in my spine. That resulted in my fracture. The pain was so bad that I couldn't sit, lay down, walk, or even sleep and sometimes it would hurt to breath . As a result I had to be home schooled for a month .
        A year later, I started to feel pain in my legs. Once again, I went to the doctors to get an x-rays on both my hips. I found out that my Lupus effected my hips. I now have Osteoarthritis in my hips. Lupus is related to Arthritis. I have been using a wheelchair and crutches when I am in too much pain. I can't walk very far or sit for too long before I start to feel pain. I can't run or ride a bike. It is too painful. Instead of having two hip replacements I would like to get Regenerative Stem Cell treatment.
         Regenerative Stem Cell treatment is taken my own PRP (platelet rich plasma) from my own blood and re-inject it back into my hips. Our own body has the ability to repair it self. I believe this is best treatment for me. I am to young to get hip replacement.  Hip replacement has to be repeated every 10 to 15 years.

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