Nollywood actress, Kemi Afolabi, has opened up about her struggle with lupus, recalling how the illness once left her convinced she would not survive.
Naijaonpoint reports that in a fresh interview with Doyin Kukoyi TV, she revealed that at the peak of her health crisis, she could not eat or drink, relied on oxygen to breathe, purchased a burial site, and wrote her will.
Afolabi explained that lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack its own organs, was unfamiliar to her until she was diagnosed.
She said the illness caused severe joint pains, more intense than childbirth, and led to multiple wrong diagnoses at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) before she travelled abroad and received the correct diagnosis.
The actress stated that lupus has no cure, and she continues to manage it with daily medication and injections.
The actress said she travels abroad regularly for treatment and avoids prolonged exposure to light, which has affected her acting work.
She said: “When I was down with Lupus, I thought the end had come. I couldn’t eat nor drink. I was using oxygen to breathe. I already bought where I would be buried and I wrote my Will but God said it was not yet time to go. I survived with the power of God, the support of my family, friends and colleagues. Lupus has k!lled a lot of people. I have never heard of it till i experienced it. It is an autoimmune disease that will make your body system to be working against itself. The organs will not function properly
“When it first started with me, all the joints in my body gave me intense pain. Childbirth pain is little compared to the pain of Lupus. They were diagnosing different diseases for me at LUTH until I traveled out and was told it’s Lupus. Lupus has no cure I am still managing it with medications. I travel abroad every now and then because of it. I get an injection every day. I can’t be under light for a long time like I used to when acting. People were saying so many things but the one that got to me most was when someone said I have been used spiritually.”
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