Keah-please read

Hi Keah, Been sort of keeping up with you here on the boards. I just spent 8 days in the hospital, infection in colon and COPD reared its ugly head, really bad. Now using oxygen at home-so nice to breath.

In the process of getting into a new PCP that has hospital priveleges, found out the hard way mine of 10 yrs does not have any hospital priveleges.

Before going into the hospital was sent for lab work. My ANA came back positive, CEA elevated. Got CT of the stomach recently severe fatty liver infillitration. Read last nite fatty liver is common with peeps & cd.

Tell me if you can about positive ANA and CEA thing. Seeing a rheumy on March 16. Hugs, Susie

Oh Susie, I'm so sorry that you've had so much trouble. These darn diseases just turn us inside out and backwards.

I'm probably not the best one to try and explain the tests, but I'll give it a try. ANA is an antinuclear antobody test. It is most often used to determine the presence of autoimmune disease. It's not surprising that you've got a positive result there.

I know very little about the CEA other than that it is some sort of marker used to monitor treatment outcomes for certain types of cancers. It's usually used when a patient has cancer of the GI tract, mostly colorectal cancer. Since we are at high risk for GI cancers, it's probably good to have the baseline. Keep in mind that the scale used to determine normal levels is just an average. It might well be that you just have a normally higher level.

I'd be asking why this test was even run and want an explanation about the significance of the result right away. I sure hope that the result is insignificant for you. Please let me know how it goes.

I can really understand your PCP problem. Living in NYC gives me a HUGE pool of MDs to select from, but one of my problems has been that we have so many hospitals here and I had MDs that practiced at all differnt ones. I've been trying to work it out so that I could have all my MDs at the same facility, but even that has been a hassle. I'm now being treated by a GI and Rheumy at Mt Sinai, but my PCP (who I LOVE and won't give up) does not practice there. Now that I'm moving up to the Biologics, I worry more about infection becoming a problem. My PCP, ENT and Pulmonologist all work at one hospital and my GI and Rheumy are at another. Then there's my GYN at a third. Oy! What a mess.

I hope that you can get your MD situation straigtened out soon and that your current health issues resolve quickly.

Thanks for taking the time to shout out to me too. I've been scarce for the last few months because of my own health problems and the need to also take care of my sick mother. I hope to hear that things are better for you soon. Be well.
(((((HUGS)))))