ANA POSITIVE

[Lisas_tired]

I’ve recently been referred to a specialist clinic due to my high antibodies & prescribed Hydroxychloroquine, I’m not sure what these are for as I was just left a prescription to pick up, in the meantime waiting for an appointment, not sure how long I will be waiting as it’s been over a month now. My doctor has mentioned Lupus & lymes disease!!! If anyone can shed some light on these, that would be great, especially lymes!!

Can anyone give me any questions i should be asking as I don’t want to walk with a load of questions I should have asked... Many thanks...

My results as follows:

Rheumatoid factor - 10.3 iu/ml (0-20)

Nuclear autoantibody - (titre 1:1600) very high

DsDna binding autoantibody - 7iu/ml (0-20)

ENA antibody - Negative

ENA tested were: Sm, RNP, RO, LA, Scl-70 and JO 1.......

[whisperit]

Hello Lisas_tired,

I think Chanpreet answered your last post with a lot of information, so I'll stick to some basic points. First, my understanding is that Lyme Disease is a bacterial infection that is treated with antibiotics in the acute phase. It can leave people with chronic fatigue, though, and with some blood results that mimic those of rheumatoid and auto-immune conditions. I guess it would be possible to have both a systemic AI condition like lupus and a post Lyme fatigue syndrome.

The fact that you have been prescribed hydroxy suggests that your doctor is confident that you have a systemic autoimmune disease like lupus or one of the related conditions (UCTD,MCTD etc). This would tend to be confirmed by your high ANA titre. The hydroxy will act to damp down the activity of your auto-immune response - though it takes a few months to work. A positive dsDNA is highly specific to lupus/SLE - but as I am not sure what your bracketed range numbers mean, I can't tell whether you have tested positive or not, sorry.

In your position, I guess my first thought would be to clarify exactly what diagnosis I have!? My next priority is to be clear about which medic is my lead physician and what the next steps are in terms of testing and treatment.

Hope things improve from here on! x

[Lisas_tired in reply to whisperit]

Thankyou so much the bracket results are the ranges they should be between, my ones I put just before are my ranges so dsdna is 7 but the range is from 0-20 so not sure if that’s low or ok?? All the other results seem ok... I think!!! Glad you say the tablets take a few months, was wondering if I was meant to notice any difference. Thankyou for your response xx

[whisperit in reply to Lisas_tired]

I think you would have to ask your clinician to interpret the dsDNA number - different labs may use different techniques and present the results differently to others, so the same numbers may mean something different depending on the lab or technique used. EDIT - a quick look on the web suggests that a "weak positive value" might be under 30 IU/ml and at this low level is *not* specific to lupus - but as I say, do not trust my word on this!!

[Buffy14]

I also don't understand your dsdna result when I was first diagnosed my dsdna was 120 and i was told that everyone has some dsdna in their blood and a normal level in a healthy person is 7 but I think yours has been measured in a different way from the sound of it .

[Lisas_tired in reply to Buffy14]

Ok Thankyou, hopefully will get some answers soon & be able to understand it more xx

[Paul_Howard Partner LUPUS UK]

Hi Lisas_tired ,

If you would like some more information about hydroxychloroquine, Arthritis Research UK have a great section on their website about it - arthritisresearchuk.org/art...

As whisperit has said, Lyme disease is an infection spread by ticks although it can present with very similar symptoms to lupus. You can learn more about it at nhs.uk/conditions/lyme-dise...

Good luck with your upcoming appointment with the specialist. If you'd like any tips on preparing for the appointment, you may find our article here helpful - lupusuk.org.uk/getting-the-...

[Lisas_tired in reply to Paul_Howard]

Thankyou Paul so much, much appreciated x