Hi everyone,
Been awhile since I posted so blessings to you all! I'm posting this in the hopes someone has some knowledge of this topic or knows someone who could answer some questions in more depth than I can find online.
As some of you know, I have a bit of a weird storyline that led to my diagnosis of Lupus. One of which is my blood work and having a not-so-common sub type of the ANAs called Anti Histone (Antibody). Generally I am ANA positive. But, at the time of my Lupus diagnosis my Rheumy ran an additional test to see if it was DIL (drug induced Lupus) as I had been on biologics to treat another autoimmune condition of mine - Spondyloarthropathy.
Well, after almost 4 years of discontinuing the drug that caused the Anti Histone antibody to show up. It’s still there and going up (it should be 0 in most people, and rarely positive - supposedly! - in SLE)!!!!
The increases are small but steady.
As it is not common to test positive for this and NOT have drug induced Lupus, which is a Lupus-like syndrome that clears up when the offending drug is discontinued, does anyone know why my number would be increasing?
Do you know anyone who knows anyone that knows about this antibody?
My doctor is basically like “Yup, it’s up.” When I ask if that is a way to objectively monitor disease activity, he side steps the questions.
I haven’t met a Rheumy yet who knows much about positive AHA in SLE (vs. DIL). Simply, when a drug triggers “latent” Lupus vs. you get something like lupus but it goes away. I’m the former.
Sorry for the long post, just hitting a lot of dead ends and am trying to figure out if anyone is doing research on this and what it means in the long run.
Love to you all!