Treating Lupus-why we didn't

I have been asked before that if the other doctors were so sure Marcus had Lupus then why did we not treat it with anything but pain pills.
Doctors at St. Louis along with his regular ped told us that some of the medicines could be toxic if used in someone without Lupus. In other words the very medicine that could really help someone with Lupus could kill someone that took it and didn't actually have the disease.
We did consider one medicine but after researching it and knowing it could cause permanent retinal damage we deciding against it till receiving a second opinion which is what lead us to Cincinnati. Thank goodness we waited for another doctor's advice cause we might have put him on something that could have caused blindness.