I have been diagnosed with, and have been treating my autoimmune diseases since 2007, which is when I was fist diagnosed with POTS. I was later diagnosed with other autoimmune diseases. I had wondered and worried about rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as I have experienced some of the symptoms (pain in my joints). In addition to knowing that it affects women twice as much as men, and that there are 1.3M undiagnosed Americans. I knew that if I am able to detect it early enough, I can also treat it early enough to prevent long-term damage.

Hi there I am Zola, the lupus warrior behind the instagram page @beyondlupus. I started the page motivated by many many stories of women and men who share their stories with lupus and how it affects them.