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    In the Loop: Curling for a Cause: ‘Lupus ‘Spiel USA’ Raises Funds for Research

patient Regan Birr playing the game of curling on the ice

This story originally appeared on the In the Loop blog.
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Regan Birr was diagnosed with lupus when she was 21 years old. In the years since, she tells us her road to recovery has been a long and winding one. "When I first got sick, I had extreme pain and fatigue all over my body," she says. "I was given a 2 1/2-year regimen of Cytoxin, which is actually a breast cancer drug, and that seemed to put me into remission." The operative word being "seemed."

"My labs were good, but I still felt terrible," Regan tells us. "It took a lot of years of recovery, including a complete diet and exercise change – a lifestyle revamp, if you will – to feel better."

That "lifestyle revamp" included getting back to something she hadn't done much of since her diagnosis – curling. "Muscle tissue can actually degrade when you have lupus, so you have to keep active, help those muscles," Regan told FOX 9 News, Minneapolis/St. Paul, in a story about the tournament her curling club,Four Seasons Curling Club, held last year to raise money for lupus research. "That's why curling is so beneficial, because it gets your body moving, and every little bit counts." Read the rest of Regan's story.

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