Am I being thick? ANA

[MsAndyIvy]

Brain fog aside, am I being thick?

Managed to get my full set of blood test results off GP today to send to rheumy.

Is ANA generally reported as ‘ANA’ or does it come under something else?

I’m sure GP told me I was ANA negative in January but I can’t see anything on my test results.

X

[whisperit]

Hmm...hard to know. Can you see anything that you can't recognise that just might be the ANA result? Anything called Anti-nuclear antibodies? Any ratios in the results (ANAs are usually ratios, with 1:40 or less called negative) ? Are there any other nuclear antibody results eg anti-dsDNA, histone antibodies....? Failing that, do you want to post an (anonymised) photo of your results? x

[MsAndyIvy in reply to whisperit]

Thanks. Deffo no ratios and deffo nothing about any kind of anti-bodies. Just immunoglobulins and rheumatoid factor.

I have sneaky feeling that they didn’t do it and I’ve misread your ‘bloods are okay’ as ANA negative. I specifically asked for ANA too!

Only things showing up on bloods is serum ferritin high,serum folate high and mean corpuscular heamaglobin high plus my elevated CSF fluid.

Sigh, thinking I’m ringing GP again.

[whisperit in reply to MsAndyIvy]

Sounds like you're right, the blighters. We get to do a lot of sighing in this forum, don't we? x

[MsAndyIvy in reply to whisperit]

I’m going to change it up with an ‘harumph!’

[Hidden]

When I was first tested by my GP 7 years ago he only tested my RF, ESR, CRP and FBC. My rheum only tested my anti CCP. Only when I came up in a nasty facial rash with Hydroxy (and MTX) did my rheum request my full antibody panel. I’d already been on steroids and 3 DMARDS for 2 years by then so unsurprisingly my RF was normal but my ANA was equivocal (no numbers given). Then negative when I moved (steroids) then clear positive when I was properly clear of every drug. It seems shocking somehow that they don’t automatically run the full battery of tests on us from the outset so as to have a baseline.

But they certainly didn’t with me and I never had the numberwork or baseline until I specifically requested that a GP look it up for me. I know this because I relocated and requested a GP patient summary with all antibody results for new rheumy in new hospital. My old GP apologised as he said he could only locate my RF from 2011 and rheumy no 2 told me disapprovingly that my ANA wasn’t run until 2014! ENA panel always negative so far. X

[BobCo]

When I was tested recently. The ANA Screen & ENA Panel tests took a week longer to come back from the lab than the general pathology stuff. I also thought they had forgotten to run the Antibody tests. The results eventually turned up. Maybe you're in the same situation?

[MsAndyIvy in reply to BobCo]

Could be. But it’s been ages.

[BobCo in reply to MsAndyIvy]

Hmmm. I think you need to speak to your GP and get to the bottom of it... Good luck!

[MsAndyIvy]

Hurrah!!! Lovely receptionist found the missing results when GP couldn’t.

Bloody negative ANA though.

[LH44 in reply to MsAndyIvy]

Watch out for the negative ANA! NHS changed to a cheaper version of the test namely CTD screen. The gold standard ANA is based on the IFA method. If your result is speckled you need to ensure the IFA ANA test is done as the newer cheaper one is less specific & misses speckled results. This is a known issue!

[MsAndyIvy in reply to LH44]

Thanks