Good site to get some general information about Lupus:
http://www.medicinenet.com/systemic_lupus/article.htm
Things that help:
Stay out of the sun - get at BIG hat. It's pretty stupid looking, but being in the sun is just not worth the pain if your body decides that it doesn't like it. Don't stay in the sun so long that your body thinks it's getting DNA damage, your immune system may then start attacking your own DNA, and that's not good.
Take supplements - B12, Omegas 3, 6, and 9, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc, Folic acid - things that help with DNA replication. There are new DNA/RNA supplements available too, I haven't tried those yet though.
Drink Apple Cider Vinegar - It apparently helps with maintaining pH balance in the body, which is generally healthy for just everyone. A healthy pH will allow everything else in your body to work more efficiently. I have trouble drinking this everyday, but testimonies for drinking this is very positive.
Go Gluten-free - this was a pretty drastic change to my diet - and budget - but I found that it was well worth it. I was only mildly intolerant before my lupus diagnosis, and I'd steadily felt worse before the diagnosis and before going gluten free. Once i was diagnosed and cut out all wheat and gluten, my stomach issues have completely gone away.
Avoid yoghurt - I don't have a good scientific reason or backing for this one, but the last time I had yoghurt i was coming near remission toward the end of my flare, and my arms and hands started to pain again like the beginnings of the flare-up. yoghurt apparently decreases the body's production of cortisol, which is great for most people, but not if you are coming out of a flare-up and are using prednisone to suppress your immune system. I ended up increasing my prednisone dose for a while. Maybe it wasn't the yoghurt, maybe it was Italy, or the sun that set it off, but after i stopped the yoghurt, I was fine within a day - ehile i was still in Italy with all the sun. There are more confounding factors, but I'm not willing to go through the pain to test them all out.
Basically, try and avoid everything that will cause an immune response.
Stay so healthy that your body won't think that it needs to attack anything, because if an immune response is mounted against an infection for example, your immune system may go into overdrive and start attacking your healthy tissues as well, setting off another flare. Not fun.
