Hi folks, dropping in here from the Ulcerative Colitis forum with a question for you

My primary care physician noticed some irregularities in some blood work she did recently, which her assistant said raised a question of whether I have another autoimmune disorder. Her assistant asked me to come back for more tests.

When I was having my blood drawn, I asked the phlebotomist what tests were ordered -- they were ANA, Anti-Sm, and Anti-dsDNA. I'm sure you are all familiar with those and know what she's testing for.

So I'm nervous. I had the blood drawn on Tuesday (12/3). The last results were complete in 3 days, so I called on Friday to find out whether they had these results yet and was told that these tests take longer.

tl;dr: How long do you normally wait to hear the results of your blood work, specifically for lupus markers?

Thanks all!

I've never had any labs that took longer than a week - of course, I do live in a rather large metropolitan area so maybe local processing is faster?

I live in DC Metro Area and I have been told anywhere from 2-4 weeks also. My last result I got back in 4 weeks

I've gotten more information since asking (although no results yet). I understand that:

"The ANA should not take that long but the other two are done by immunofluorescence or ELISA and these methods can take some time to finish. If the antibody is detected further testing is done to confirm the results. Doctors offices tell patients tests take longer because sometimes they do really take that long."

LupieICURN -- can I ask you whether your tests reflected that the Ant-Sm or Anti-dsDNA antibodies were found? I'm starting to think, based on the answer given to me by a nurse practitioner, that the delay is the additional testing for confirmation. :-(