Help with biopsy results please!

Hi everyone, was wondering if anyone could relate to my skin biopsy results?

Had ongoing issues for years with painful joints (which recently an MRI has confirmed that I have something inflammatory going on), Raynaud's, splinter hemhorrage's in nails, new allergy to penicillin and terrible sun sensitivity. I've also had one positive lupus anticoagulant test two years ago but everything else normal. Been on hydroxychloroquine for two years. I'm at the end of my rope!

Thanks!

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Hydroxychloroquine

13 Replies

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Comeonpeeps

in reply to AnnNY

2 years ago

Thanks for the reply Ann. Yes I agree, it does sound inconclusive. The thing is the reaction I had which he biopsied doesn't look like hives and I react to the sun in other ways too, it makes me very unwell. I only get these spots when I've been in the sun, must be caused by the sun.

I thought having a biopsy was definitive of whatever was going on, seems like that's not the case sometimes.

What did your biopsy say, and how long after were you diagnosed?

Also collagen in the skin is part of the connective tissue it seems and my MRI shows damage to the connective tissue in my wrist (had one wrist done, but I have the exact same problem in the other) so it feels like there's a connection forming here? I suffer with other joints, ligaments too which haven't been MRI'd.

Been from one specialist to the other...can't see it ever ending!

AnnNY

in reply to Comeonpeeps

2 years ago

It was actually part of the tests I had to be diagnosed and that was 7 years after being sick. (I got sick in 1977.) The biopsies were part of a lupus band test which looks for immune markers in sun exposed skin and skin not exposed to sun. The sun exposed is supposed to be positive. At the time the non-exposed skin was supposed to be negative. My came out reversed. Most recently, I was told they were not very interested in the test anymore.

The lupus anticoagulant test isn't actually for lupus. It's for another autoimmune disease which is not uncommon in lupus called antiphospholipid syndrome.

For me it has been symptoms that have arisen of time, plus my improving on lupus meds that have been more putting me in the lupus-like UCTD category. I also have been diagnosed with APS and Sjogrens.

Some of the rashes I get in the sun might look more like hives if they were biopsied, I expect.

Take photos and also track of symptoms.

If you are on plaquenil, you are being treated and are being taken seriously. Have you improved on plaquenil?

AnnNY

2 years ago

I can't tell completely from the letter, but I don't think you had a lupus band test. The lupus band test takes two biopsies, one from sun exposed skin--in my case a forearm--and lesser sun exposed skin--upper thigh.

At the same time the dermatologist took another biopsy from a rash area which was totally different. I think your doctor took that kind of biopsy.

My LBT results discussed both areas, (sun exposed...) and immunoflorescense.

Sorry if I confused you. But all these tests can be mind-boggling.

I'm not a doctor or dermatologist--just a science-geeky patient that likes to understand my tests.

Even though all three of these biopsies were considered negative then, it didn't prove whether or not I had lupus. Since my symptoms still suggested lupus, they put me on plaquenil. I improved greatly on that, and that helped me toward a diagnosis.

Your doctors will have to figure out what is going on taking all the evidence into account.