Ruth Wilson waited six years for a lupus diagnosis before receiving her monthly intravenous treatment at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, on January 14, 2025, Le Monde.fr reported.
The Massachusetts woman’s delay echoes that of Claude Bissonnet Bonneau, a former midwife at Foch hospital in Suresnes, France, whose lupus was finally diagnosed in 2017, when she was 57.
Bonneau’s path to a diagnosis ran through a Paris rheumatologist in 2014. The specialist barely examined her, ordered no blood work and placed a prescription for Prozac on his desk with a list of psychiatrists, she told Le Monde.fr.
“Madam, what you need is this,” the doctor said, according to her account.
After that consultation, Bonneau gave up on specialists for three years. To keep working despite joint pain, mouth ulcers and skin problems, she took high doses of anti-inflammatory drugs prescribed by her general practitioner.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease: the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues “by mistake,” according to Le Monde.fr. It can affect the skin, the joints and the kidneys.
Like most autoimmune diseases, lupus strikes women far more often than men. Autoimmune conditions affect 5% to 10% of the world’s population, of whom 20% are men, according to Inserm, the French national institute of health and medical research.
Wilson’s six-year wait in the United States and Bonneau’s three-year gap between the dismissed 2014 consultation and her 2017 diagnosis show the same pattern: symptoms that went unrecognized until a correct diagnosis finally arrived.
Both women kept working through the pain — Bonneau on high-dose anti-inflammatories, Wilson until her own diagnosis finally came.
Why did Claude Bissonnet Bonneau stop seeing specialists? After the 2014 consultation in which a rheumatologist prescribed Prozac instead of ordering tests, she gave up on specialists for three years, Le Monde.fr reported.
What did the Paris rheumatologist prescribe? He placed a prescription for Prozac, an antidepressant, on his desk along with a list of psychiatrists, according to Bonneau.
Who is most affected by lupus? The disease mainly affects women; autoimmune diseases overall affect 5% to 10% of the world population, including 20% men, according to Inserm.
What remains unknown is how many other patients receive psychiatric referrals instead of autoimmune testing — neither woman’s case, as Le Monde.fr reported it, answers that question.
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