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another autoimmune disease?

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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 2/18/2010 8:50 AM (GMT 0)
How many of us deal with this? I've been having major pain, diarrhea and fevers lately. I got some lab work back that said my ANA test came back positive. Things like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis were mentioned. I see my primary doc tomorrow. As thankful as I will be to find a problem and hopefully get the pain under control, I am totally freaking out about maybe having lupus. This pain has been unbearable.

My thinking is cd is enough. My docs have been thinking it was a virus but I knew it couldn't hurt this bad/this long and just be a virus.
Posted 2/18/2010 9:52 AM (GMT 0)
It seems like it is never just one thing with autoimmune disease. I started with one and have added a few others along the way. Thankfully not lupus. That one seems to scare me too. The only way I can keep things under control is to get as much sleep as possible. Which is not happening tonight obviously. Don't want to take sleeping pills but considering it at the moment. I have a non-stop day tomorrow and hope I can cope with it all.
Posted 2/18/2010 12:25 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Heatmiser,
I think your gonna find that quite a lot of us suffer from more than one autoimmune disease. I also have crohns/colitis,Iritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis, also had ileostomy surgery done almost 12 months ago now. I am just hoping that will be it for me I seriously don't know how I would cope with anything else going wrong. But somehow we do yeah Keep us posted and hope all goes well for you , take care :-)
Posted 2/18/2010 8:05 PM (GMT 0)
Did they simply do the ANA test or something more specific?

Remember that the ANA test is very nonspecific, ie, it can be elevated for all sorts of conditions, including Crohn's, and sometimes it's even elevated when no AI disease is present.

Based on having a positive ANA, you might want to run some additional blood work, but positive ANA by itself doesn't mean much.
Posted 2/18/2010 8:28 PM (GMT 0)
I agree that a further blood work up is necessary to determine anything.  I also have an ANA and remember being mortified that Lupus was what I had.  As it turnes out, it is a soupy mixture of autoimmune stuff going on.  It makes for a very hard diagnosis and sometimes hard to find a doctor that is well educated or even cares about autoimmune stuff!  I currently am suffering from 4 kinds...just not Lupus.

Try to take it one doctor's apt. at a time.  It can all be dealt with.  Hang in there.

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