Blood test

[Angellealea1]

Hi all.

Good morning, just wondering if any of you have had blood results of Connective Tissue Disease & what did your consultants say about the findings? My docs think Sjogren's & Lupus disease, but it's early days.

Look forward to hearing from you x

[whisperit]

Hello Angellealea1

I think most people will have had quite a lot of bloods done before being diagnosed with a CTD. As you will see from browsing through past posts here, it's quite usual for it to take months or years without a definitive diagnosis, as the presentation of different individuals is so varied and complex.

My first diagnosis was of heart failure, and it wasn't until I had a strongly positive ANA test that this was revised to "Undifferentiated CTD and ?Sjogren's" Even now, 3 years later, and despite some fairly severe problems, my rheumy doesn't like to use a definitive term, and just calls it, "Connective Tissue Disease". The good thing is that this doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be effectively treated x

[Angellealea1 in reply to whisperit]

Hi hun, thanks for your reply.

It's just so frustrating, I've been so sick for years & now only bloods have started showing up things, I had ANA, Smooth muscle & SSA/ro & these have come back positive, along with CTD. My lupus one, is the only one that comes back inconclusive & needs checking every 3 months.

I have heart disease too & a blood condition, called sticky blood & I need to take Warfarin, these problems also caused 2 TIAs, total nightmare.

If you don't mind me asking, what meds do you take for the Autoimmune disease? x

[whisperit in reply to Angellealea1]

Yes I had ANA positive at 1:1280, positive anti-Ro and negative dsDNA. I'm on hydroychloroquine 400mg and prednisolone (started on 20mg daily, now 4mg). But I am anticipating some changes soon as things are not under control atm. I don't envy you the TIAs x

[DJK99]

Hey there - Hope you're OK, tough times eh. Well I had low white blood cell count for about two years (they finally noticed as had a new young doc who went "er..... this isn't right!". And also Low Complement 3 and Complement 4 ( the latter as low as you can get) also for years. Also borderline positive lg something or other. And blood and protein in my urine. Plus severe raynauds, lesions and swollen joints in hands, very dry eyes, swallow, extremely dry skin.. and other parts... stiff painful joints and tendons etc all over and the major fatigue.... the worst thing. i was then refered to Rheumatalogy - this about 2.5yrs ago now. I've recently been diagnosed with Lupus by the top Rheumatologist who specialises in CTD due to my hypocomplementaemia and low complement etc... as have had rashes all my life and the aforementioned symptoms and lots were on show at the date of my appointment with him. so hope that helps... If they think Sjogren (which Eye hospital a&E thought after I went as my eyelids kept getting utterly stuck to my eyeballs each night and the top of the range eye drops weren't working) they'll send you for a lip biopsy which I found extremely unpleasant and difficult to get over.. whatever they say, if you have it, stock up on soups, a ton of ibropurfen and paracetamol etc which I needed every 4 hours.. I was negative at that point... but they can do it again if things worsen.so - hope that helps.. check out the following link for further information on Lupus diagnositc guidelines in the uK - very helpful: academic.oup.com/rheumatolo... All the best, D