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What are the symptoms of Lupus and other connective tissue diseases?

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Posted 6/16/2010 12:41 AM (GMT 0)
I am being tested for Lupus as I have had 2 positive speckeled ANA blood test readings over the past 3 months (1:1200 and 1:2500).

I am curious, what are the symptoms of Lupus? What about other related diseases? I don't relly understand what it is.

Posted 6/16/2010 1:07 AM (GMT 0)
What symptoms have you been experiencing. Everybody has different ones. Look at the Lupus Foundation of America website for symptoms and disease process. I am new myself to this site. But i get a lot of my information from there and these wonderful guys. They are great on here.
Posted 6/16/2010 3:07 AM (GMT 0)
ANA tests are complicated and are part of the dianostic quiver of tools used to diagnose and differentiate different AI diseases.  This site might help to explain.

http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/ana/test.html

Here are the common lupus symptoms.  Not everyone has all of them and it only takes a few to diagnose lupus.  There is very little that is consistent with lupus or other AI diseases and each case presents itself in a unique way.

http://www.lupus.org/newsite/pages/body_tool.aspx

Many of us have overlapping connective tissue diseases which are even more complex.  I have mctd which is a combination of lupus, scleroderma and polymyositis.  Very complex and difficult to understand.  Even so, treatment for many of these is pretty much the same.  The biggest variable factor is how an individual patient will respond to treatment.

Hope you can get a diagnosis and start treatment soon.

Challenged nurse, what is umctd?  I have mctd (mixed connective tissue disease) and there is uctd (undifferentiated connective tissue disease) which often progresses into something else. 

Bill

 

Posted 6/16/2010 3:23 AM (GMT 0)
It was suppose to be UTCD. Must have had a bad day. LOL!
Posted 6/16/2010 3:35 AM (GMT 0)
You are allowed to call it lupus fog, or prednisone fog...or lupus brain.  Fog makes it more romantic sounding.

Bill

Posted 6/16/2010 4:55 AM (GMT 0)
Thank you for your help. I have had a read of the links, doesn't sound very pleasant.

I have a few of the symptoms associated with it, but not all that many. I guess its just a sit and wait game now. Can lupus be diagnosed from a biopsy of the bowel? The doctor suggested he was checking for this but it seems like an odd way to diagnose?
Posted 6/16/2010 3:02 PM (GMT 0)
What kind of doctor are you seeing? People with autoimmune disease should be treated by a rheumatologist, and I hope you're seeing one. An ANA that high suggests AI disease, but I've never heard of lupus being diagnosed from a biopsy of the bowel.

What are your symptoms carina86?
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