If you have an autoimmune disease, any autoimmune disease...

Remember one thing:

No matter what, despite your best efforts, even if you are 100-percent compliant with your meds, even if you are following all the "rules," you will have a flare.

Don't kick yourself when it happens--even if you think it's because of that one night when you drank a little too much, smoked too many cigarettes, and had too much rich food--because the truth is, anything could have caused it.

The human body is not a regimented machine, it is a delicate glass jar full of highly-reactive chemicals, perched at the edge of a precipice, in a lightning storm. Sometimes lightning strikes.

So, you will have a flare, and it will suck. When it happens, give yourself care and permission to be sick, and do what you need to get well.

But don’t kick yourself.