Well one would have been forgiven for presuming that the diagnosis of fybromyalgia was the end of the road, but no, the bloods for immunology threw up a little bit of a surprise and the all too rare (in my recent history ) of positive ANA reared it's little head again and has forced a follow up appointment in about 3 months although the immunologist suggested that a further diagnosis other than that already received was highly unlikely. And I dutifully batted on as normal. Except that on Sunday 20th I woke up and was much wierder than normal ( even for me ) and it became quickly obvious to both my partner and I that this was something new, and I was in quite a bit of trouble, indeed we were both convinced that even though I was not in any obvious pain that I was either having a heart attack or a stroke. So a trip to A&E was called for. On arrival I was immediately seen by the stroke team and put under obs in the emergency room. After a few hours when the BP and temperature was back under control and after a clear EGG and MR I, it was concluded that I had suffered some kind of TIA and that I was out of any immediate danger so I was discharged with a shiny new appointment booked for the TMA/STROKE clinic on the following Friday.
At my initial TMA appointment my consultant confirmed that his opinion was that I had a minor TMA but because of my history and an MRI that showed a very healthy brain it was highly unlikely that the event was stroke related and that he was confident that something within my history and currently undiagnosed was the cause although he took the precaution of prescribing me 6 weeks of Atorvastine, Ramipril, and Clopidogrel to combat my suddenly startling raise in BP and Cholesterol and booked me for review in6 weeks time. He also told me that hopefully it would prove to be a one off event but also warned that TMAs often prove to be a recurring early warning of other problems and could occasionally repeat over the course of several months with quite long remission periods separating events until such a time as the underlying cause reveals itself.
So still none the wiser off I toddled on my merry little way once again.
Then on Monday ( YES MY BLOODY 50th BIRTHDAY ) early into a mid afternoon dog walk I realised that I was in some considerable trouble, I was out of breath, shaking and in some considerable pain. I turned for home just as my eyesight started to blur and I could feel the dreaded fatigue rushing upon me with unusual haste. It was nothing short of a miracle that I got home and bundled both myself and the dog through the front door and myself onto the couch as I had needed to stop on a number of occasions as the blue mists of a faint threatened to overcome me. I had an hour or so on the couch then found myself talking to a neighbour over the back wall as the buzzing I had suffered in my ears since earlier in the day suddenly massively magnified and moved to the centre of my head the pain was startling I completely lost all awareness of my surrounding and lost any feeling in my limbs other than that of alarming cold..........off to hospital again then!!
After an overnight for tests including CO, MRI, X-RAY and bloods and the conclusion today that I have had another much more severe TIA but they are conclusively not due to any threat of stroke. In apologising for not yet being able to identify what is going on other than raising the concern at how quickly I had experienced my second attack the consultant asked me to tell him some of my story, when I got to the part of lupus being dismissed due to a lack of positive ANA was astounded as he revealed that all of my last 4 tests have included raised ANA indeed last night and this morning the results were a very raised positive. And so I was discharged with a referal to Rheumy this time in Doncaster with a query....................yeah you guessed it. LUPUS
And so the cycle begins yet again
Unsure if have lupus
Does anyone have cutaneous lupus? 
Refusal
