what was your CRP?

[Sammie1392]

I have another question for everybody.

When you got your diagnosis, were you in the middle of a flare?

what was your CRP?

I’ve been feeling pretty good other than having some foot pain and pitting oedema. I had this red streak from my ankle, going down the tendon just over the midpoint of my foot going towards the toes without any potential cause of injury.

it was the hospital who did my CRP and initially suggested that I might have an autoimmune condition and to talk to my doctor because they didn’t think they could help me based on everything that I’ve been transpiring.

my CRP came back as 10.10 so just borderline. But that’s not the worst that I felt either . I was having a pretty good day other than that one problem.

so what is everybody experience with their CRP and when it was done?

[Hidden]

Hi Sammie, I was diagnosed on Friday just gone and my CRP a few weeks ago was 47! The blood test was done on the 15th November. I do think my CRP marker being so high contributed to my quick diagnosis on Friday. I wasn’t expecting to get diagnosed so soon and thought they would want to do more tests etc. I would also make sure to document your symptoms via a tracker and take photos of anything odd that happens to your body (rashes, swelling etc) I think thats what helped me!

[Sammie1392 in reply to Hidden]

I’ve been documenting everything with pictures and videos.

in any kind of heat at all, my face starts, turning red and breaks out into a rash. My cheeks are always flushed very slightly as of lately, which is not normal for me. But it’s not a malar rash because it’s not going across the bridge in my nose.

I have arrhythmia over my chest. So when I press on my skin it blanches. Sometimes in heat that will break out into a rash. That’s very short-lived.

I have pitting oedema in my lower legs.

I get pain right on the top of my foot or my lower limb starts turning into my ankle and it will sometimes get right over the tendon.

I have these weird red patches that are very slightly raised that last anywhere from 3 to 4 weeks to at most I’ve seen it last two months, and when it finally disappears, I have permanent pigmentation lost in my back where the spots were.

my hands start getting tingly and feel puffy, although they’re not visibly swollen, and they become mottled with white blotches through them.

I get waves of nausea.

my entire body has slight oedema.

and fatigued all the time.

sometimes the pain in my knees alone make it so I can’t sleep at night.

Sometimes it hurts my fingers to try to twist anything open.

it’s awful. Yeah my CRP is only 10.10 lol and I have an extremely high pain tolerance. So for me to actually be feeling pain where it’s hard to manage is nuts.

[Hidden in reply to Sammie1392]

I can completely empathise with how horrible it all is. It really does sound like you have lupus, I have had most of those symptoms you mentioned except for the pitting - but the consultant asked me if I have ever experienced that so it must be a diagnosis marker. It’s good you are taking photos and tracking symptoms as it will speed things up when you see a rheumatologist. I really hope you get a diagnosis soon. X

[OldTed60]

CRP levels vary from person to person. Some with Lupus and Sjogren’s have unresponsive CRP making it a useless marker for them. So it shouldn’t be relied on diagnostically and if used should be only in context of a person’s personal trends. Mine is very responsive usually but I’m on a lot of immune suppressant treatment now (Rituximab and my Mycophenolate) so it stayed in range despite a chest infection very recently. But then I didn’t feel particularly unwell - just breathless with pressure on my chest. It was a GP who heard a crackle in base of one lung. Whereas after my first Covid infection in August and before my first round of Rituximab it was 125 but came down quickly to 19 when I asked for it to be retested and now back in range again.