Covid antibodies. Levels after vaccine.

[Dottie11]

Covid antibodies after vaccine. level of response . To see if built up any immunity . Could anyone tell me where I can find these result levels please ? Arthritis and Immuno supressed.

[Hidden]

With the caveat that I’m not medically qualified. Your level of immunity is usually only tested on the nhs if there’s clinical reason to believe you may not have mounted a response to the vaccines. My understanding is it tends to be offered to people on B-cell depleting drugs like rituximab, where we know that a lot of people have had a sub-par response. There are also two types of test, one that gives you a yes or no, and one that gives you a quantative (numerical) level of antibodies in your sample. To the best of my knowledge, I believe anything over 5 is considered a positive immune response, but results can run into the thousands. I haven’t looked into it recently, but certainly a few months ago, it was still a case of not knowing if someone that got a result of 5 was as well protected as someone with a much higher result, so the quantative test wasn’t that much more useful than the straight yes you have antibodies or no you don’t version.

If you feel there’s good reason for you to have a test, then I’d suggest speaking to your rheumatologist in the first instance. If they won’t do it on the NHS, you can also pay to have the test done privately.

[Dottie11 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you Charlie .

[Potatos]

I had a private test done with Lloyds online pharmacy. It cost £60. You need to specify whether you want the test to see if you have had covid or whether you have made antibodies to the vaccine as they are different. It is a finger prick blood test. I had the results in about 48 hours. It tells you the level of antibodies you have made. It is obviously only applicable at that point in time as antibodies decline over time. It also cannot tell you how much protection they will give you.

[Runrig01]

if getting it done privately, it depends on the company you use. I used biocard and was given a statement that I had a “strong positive, consistent with a twin vaccine dose”. This was despite being on 5 immunosuppressants plus 2 steroid inhalers. They don’t give you a number.

They are only done on the nhs, if you are on B cell depleting meds.

[GinnyE]

I tested myself a few times after vaccination. The readings increased significantly after third primary dose. I bought the tests from Lloyd's Pharmacy on line. It's a finger prick and you have to bleed into a little phial which was tricky. You get your antibody level results emailed to you. After first two AstraZeneca jabs my reading was 400 but after further Pfizer jab it shot up to 2500>. They don't give out numbers greater than this. I take 20 mg methotrexate for RA. I decided to miss doses around vaccinations to help my body cook up more antibodies.

[Ascidian]

I tested mine through Monitor my Health - they are run by the NHS and use an NHS lab but offer private blood tests. You have a choice of testing just whether you have reacted to the vaccine, just whether you have had covid in the past few months, or both. I did the vaccine one, a few weeks after my second dose and then again after my first booster. They report a number (in units/ml) but tell you that no-one really knows what the numbers say about your immunity to covid, so it is up to you whether you feel that is worthwhile. For me, the first test result was 211 u/ml, the second was <2500 u/ml. With the caveat that no-one really understands the numbers completely, and there are other elements of the immune system which are not measured by this test, I felt that I had fairly low immunity after the first 2 jabs, but greatly improved after the booster.

[Dottie11]

Thank you to everyone for sharing all this information. Very helpful. I have just been told I have ILD and so will need to be more careful this winter. My breathing has been off the scale for some time. Another new learning curve . These conditions just keep giving. Take care.