Lauren Davidson lives outside of Lynchburg, Virginia with her family. A typical pre-teen, Lauren spent time with friends, loved playing with her dog and was an active swimmer. That started to change when Lauren’s swim coach called her mother, Susan, and told her that Lauren wasn’t feeling well and hadn’t participated in practice that day. Susan wrote it off as a fluke.
Learn More About Lauren’s Disease
Read about GPA, or Wegener’s granulomatosis, how it’s diagnosed and treated.
A week or so before her 11th birthday, Lauren started complaining of joint pain. Other symptoms started to show up over the next few days. Finally, after she started having trouble breathing, Susan brought Lauren to UVA, where her daughter was diagnosed with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, sometimes called Wegener’s granulomatosis or GPA.
GPA, a rare form of vasculitis, causes the walls of the blood vessels to become inflamed. Since it is an autoimmune disease, the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues.
Diagnosing Granulomatosis
Aarat Patel, MD, one of the few pediatric rheumatologists in the region, saw Lauren when she first arrived in the intensive care unit. Patel and Jennifer Charlton, MD, a pediatric nephrologist at UVA Children’s Hospital, decided to run some labs. Within hours, the Davidsons had a diagnosis.
The speed of this diagnosis was not typical. As Patel explains, GPA’s vague symptoms make it hard to pinpoint. Typically, it takes doctors months or even years to diagnose a GPA patient.
With this diagnosis, Lauren’s disease can continue to be managed. As Charlton put it, “There’s a tiger living inside of her. It’s either inside of its cage or outside.” As of today, Lauren’s GPA is inside of its cage, and she continues to live a normal teenage life.
Watch Lauren’s story.
My son was diagnosed at 25 with WG. That was over 8 years ago. Sending you positive thoughts and hope for your journey with this disease.
Hi Lauren
My name is Mike. I know what you are going through as I have had Wegeners for 9 years. I think I found cure and I would like to speak with your parents about it. My number is 718.309.9027.
My Father is in his second fight with this disease. The first time we did high doses of Cyclophosphamide, and Rituximab. This time he had a reaction to Rituximab and then another to Azathioprine with a low blood, anemia. He is currenly not on medication. He is struggling with his lungs too this time although, his kidneys are the main organs affected. I find this site a great comfort, and also a great place to find others to pray for, as I pray for a cure for my father.
My daughter was 11 years old when diagnosed with WG. We found out because the doctors thought she had a kidney infection. After one week she got worse and found out she was in kidney failure. She pulled through and her kidneys are fine now. However, this disease attacked her airway 2 months ago. Doctors are slowly taking her off the meds. I wish I could talk to someone that has went through this.