Last week, rapper Trick Daddy announced on the Rickey Smiley Morning Show that he has been suffering in silence for years with the disease Lupus. One week later (March 30), he confessed to Hiphopdx.com that he now does nothing along the lines of treatment for the disease.
Trick Daddy talked candidly with the hip-hop news site about abandoning the treatment necessary to successfully stave off the Discoid Lupus he suffers from potentially spreading from damaging his skin to ravaging internal organs.
“I stopped taking any medicine that they was giving me,” because for every medicine they gave me I had to take a test or another medicine every thirty days or so to make sure that medicine wasn’t causing side effects – dealing with kidney or liver failure…I just said [expletive] it all together I ain’t taking no medicine.”
He also stopped using the expensive prescription sunscreen he was initially using to protect his skin (that he explained was “greasy or oily and uncomfortable”), and taking cortisone shots to treat lesions that appeared on his body.
“If there’s one thing I want people to know, do not accept those steroid shots for [lesion] flare ups,” said Trick of the cortisone injections. “They leave scarring. They leave indentations in your skin. Trust me.”
In addition to using prescription sunscreen, taking cortisone shots and additional medications, his doctor to alter his lifestyle in ways told Trick he has found difficult to do.
First diagnosed in 1998, after going to the doctor seeking treatment for severe dry skin that had begun to appear spotted and discolored, Trick was subsequently told to take the aforementioned drug treatments, limit sun exposure, and to stop drinking and smoking.
While he is not practicing what he preaches, Trick Daddy wants to speak out to people with lupus so that they will take care of themselves/
“It gets so serious to that point, with the needles and doctor visits, I know it discourages people,” he explained. “And I just need to encourage them to do whatever they need to do to make [themselves] better.”
“Me and the Lord best friends,” he noted. “That’s why he sent me to talk to people about this…At least I can give the youth that’s dealing with Lupus, [or] even the older generation that’s [living with the disease] – some people’s dealing with a form of Lupus that’s even crippling that I know me talking about it could even make them feel better. And if I could just make them feel better, then I feel like I did my job.”
Information from Hiphopdx.com contributed to this report.
