Living with Lupus
Lupus affects around 20,000 Australians, but it's a condition most people know little about — and even fewer associate with men.
Ronan was diagnosed with central nervous system lupus in 2025 after years of worsening symptoms, and his path to getting there was anything but straightforward. Here, he talks about what the disease has taken from him, why men with lupus so often go unheard, and what he'd say to any man who suspects something isn't right.
For someone who's never heard of lupus — how would you describe what it is and what it does to your body?
Lupus is an autoimmune disease, which means your body's defence system has got confused and started to attack itself rather than the germs and bugs that make us sick. When it attacks your body, it causes damage, and this is what causes someone to have symptoms of lupus. Lupus can look different for each person, depending on which organs it's attacking. Lupus can also be mild, moderate or severe depending on how much damage it's doing and how important the organs it's attacking are.
Lupus is often thought of as a condition that mainly affects women — what's it been like navigating that as a man?
It was hard to get diagnosed because people think of lupus as a "women's disease", so it wasn't the first thing (or second thing) the doctors thought of, and they were reluctant to diagnose it because I was a man. It's important, though, to acknowledge how hard women also usually have to fight for a diagnosis, often for years, due to doctors not believing they're actually ill. I experienced this to an extent, which is apparently common for men with autoimmune diseases. People of all genders need doctors to believe in us more!
How has lupus changed your day-to-day life, and what does managing it actually look like week to week?
It's completely changed it. I went from studying a full-time health degree and working part-time to currently being somewhere between bedridden and housebound, and I'm unemployed. I can't do simple tasks like cook, clean or get groceries. I have to be very careful not to overdo it and crash from lack of energy. Things that wouldn't even occur to healthy people as needing energy, like taking a shower, are beyond me some days.
What do you wish people in your life had understood about lupus earlier — friends, family, or even doctors?
I wish they'd understood how sick I was. I have a form of lupus that attacks my brain, and it wasn't taken seriously until I started losing my ability to walk, talk, see, and I became manic. I think it's hard for people to understand illnesses where you sometimes are better and sometimes worse, and especially "invisible" illnesses where people just look at me and see a young guy who's taking up priority seating on the train. They don't know I can't stand up for more than a few minutes at a time.
What would you say to another man who suspects something is wrong but hasn't sought help yet?
Find a GP you trust. Sometimes it takes a while to work it out, but you need to look after yourself because your health is something that holds up the rest of your life. If you get sick, getting on top of it early and working with your doctors can reduce how much it impacts your life.