Nick Cannon has become a staple in the entertainment industry, mainly from a combination of his talent and hard-working attitude. Though he’d been working on achieving his goal of being an entertainer from a young age, he didn’t find the spotlight until the age of 15 when he started working at comedy clubs.
After that start, he worked steadily toward bigger things landing roles in television shows and movies as well as hosting, writing for television, comedy tours, and pursuing a music career.
Unfortunately, it all came crashing down in January of 2012 when he was hospitalized for having trouble breathing and kidney pain.
That’s when tests confirmed the news that as many as 1 in 250 African Americans hear annually – Nick Cannon had lupus. To make things worse, he was suffering from lupus nephritis – a specific condition in which the disease has affected the kidneys and can lead to kidney failure.
During an interview with the Lupus Organization, Cannon stated that his life after the diagnosis was a “learning curve” and “I had to be extremely careful, get on the proper diet, get the proper rest, and take care of my body, and I’d be able to fight it.”
RELATED: Is Lupus Contagious? Risk Factors, Causes, & Prevention
What Is Lupus?
Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy tissues and organs. As a result, the affected areas become inflamed causing pain and other symptoms.
Some of the likely areas to be attacked by lupus are your joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart, and lungs. While there are different types of lupus, the most common is systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which affects multiple organs or systems in the body.
Depending on the type of lupus you have, a few of the symptoms you may experience include