Autoimmune Disease? Rheumatoid Factor And High Anti-CCP
Sep 4, 2013
I have been to multiple doctors over the pas year. I started out at an orthopedic surgeon because my knee was swelling (previous meniscus removal in that knee btw). According to him nothing was wrong with my ligaments so he referred me to a rheumatologist. After testing positive for both blood tests (rheumatoid factor and high anti ccp level) he diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis. I did not have any of the typical symptoms of rheumatoid so I went to the Mayo clinic for a second opinion. I then tested negative for the rheumatoid factor and after a thorough exam, he concluded that I don't have rheumatoid. Throughout this time and still now I have been experiencing the following symptoms:-
-random blurred vision
-popping and pain in elbows
-popping in back when taking a deep breath
-numbness every once in a while in fingers
-chest tightness and shortness of breath
I have had chest xrays, full blood work, etc. All came back fine. Am I making this all up in my head?! I feel there is something wrong but every doc I go to says I am fine.
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Would an anti ccp level of 189 be considered high or not? Thanks in advance.
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I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia years ago due to constant and sometimes debilitating muscle and joint pain. I am seeing a new PCP and she ordered some blood tests. The first was just a general screening but my c-reactive protein came back as elevated (also my platelets) so the doc ordered an ANA with reflex if positive. ANA came back positive (no titer information - it was just a positive/negative test I guess) and anti-SSA came back at 8.0 (negative range is 0.0 to 0.9). But RA factor, anti-centromere B antibodies, anti-dna (ds) qn, anti-jo-1, anti chromatin, anti scleroderma-70, rnp, anti-SSB, and smith antibodies are all normal.
Besides my muscle and joint pain I have had periods of alopecia (losing quarter to half-dollar sized patches of hair on my head), full-body rashes during especially hot times, asthma, and suspected endometriosis (currently controlled by depo-provera). I also used to never get sunburnt but my face especially gets really red now if I am in the sun for more than a little while. I have darker skin so its sometimes hard to see but lately my cheeks and nose seem constantly flushed.
All of these symptoms have been spaced out and gradual so I never thought anything of each individual symptom. The alcopecia was blamed on "stress" when I went to the doctor for it. The rashes I blamed on a simple "heat rash". My pain was diagnosed at first as carpal tunnel and then as fibromyalgia. But now with the ANA and anti-SSA tests I am thinking it all may be related. But I don't know and my doctor is out of town, and although I know she will refer me to a rheumatologist now as we have talked about that, who knows when I will actually be able to see the rheumatologist. So any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I am thinking maybe SLE (lupus) but with only that one anti-SSA and none of the others I don't know. Also I do have flares 2-3 times a month where my pain gets much worse but it constantly hurts and aches the rest of the time regardless, which doesn't seem like typical lupus. Oh and I also had severe fatigue until my doc put me on Savella which helped with the fatigue but not the pain. So now I am on gabapentin also but it doesn't seem to help too much either.
I would do almost anything just to be pain-free for even just a day. I am hoping with the ANA results now the doctors will not only maybe be better able to treat me but also will take my pain seriously.
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My grandmother is 53 years old and has arthritis. She takes cataflam against pain and inflammation. Some time ago she started telling us that her tablets are missing. She thinks someone is taking them. I have a younger brother who is a teenager. When I asked him if he knows anything about grandma missing medicine, he yelled at me, slammed the door and went out with his friends. Is it possible that he is taking Cataflam? I mean, is it possible to get a high of cataflam?
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Does that mean that we women are more susceptible to viruses, respiratory infections, etc.? Do most follow a certain diet ?
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Has anyone read or been told by their doc they should "not" take probiotics if they have Hashimoto's or other autoimmune illness?
I read somewhere that one with autoimmune problems should not take probiotics that it could cause systemic yeast infection. Now I can't find that article. Everything else I read states probiotics good for autoimmune disease.
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I have been living with AIH for 14 years, first diagnosed when i was 14 years old. Luckily I am fairly stable with the odd flare up now and again. I am being looked after by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bham and they are brilliant. Currently i'm on 50mg of Azathioprine a day and its brilliant with no side effects. I have been on Prednisolone in the past and i've not got on well with it. My doc keeps mentioning the possibility of me having to go back on it in the future but I don't like the side effects.
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Say you have been treated for Graves Disease with RAI and that deals with the hyperthyroidism (not so much with the eyes though!), what happens to the antibodies that were attacking you thyroid with such vigour and verve? Do they just go home because there's nothing left to attack? Are they always in your system waiting to attack public enemy number 2? And why do these things decide to attack the very thing they are meant to be protecting? Is it genetics? Childhood illness (whooping cough, measles and mumps in my case.) Environmental factors? Stress? Diet?
I am sure there are many schools of thought and theories to all of these questions but I am curious still about where these wee anti-bodies go after the illness (or symptom of your illness) has been irradiated in my case.
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I am 2 days into the vinegar treatment. I can't reach them on my back to use duct tape. Too many anyway. Does anyone out there have them on
their back? Does just the vinegar help?
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I am interested to know if anybody here has autoimmune and if so do you have discomfort in your chest. I've had my heart checked and it's OK but I wake every morning with pressure in my chest. Was wondering if this was typical for autoimmune.
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I'm 25 and over the past 6 years I've been diagnosed with 4 pretty serious autoimmune conditions. When I was 19, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis which is often crippling, even now. I was told this was an autoimmune condition. Shortly after, I was diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, another autoimmune condition. The Arthritis and symptoms of the coeliac disease when I hadn't controlled it obviously made me feel unwell and I often felt lethargic and unhopeful due to a lot of pain and stuff going on in my body.
I managed to go on a clinical trial which allowed me to have a new and powerful arthritis drug which dramatically improved the condition and I managed to cut gluten out of my diet. I also lost a bit of weight - this helped.
However, after the trial, my symptoms of arthritis gradually came back but was usually kept under control with the exception of a few flare ups.
When I was 23, I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes after getting a very quick onset flurry of symptoms (another autoimmune condition) - I find this very difficult to manage.
I've recently moved cities and transferring all of my specialists and treatments left me with no arthritis medication, and a long wait until I see a diabetes specialist to adjust insulin levels. As you can probably imagine, I've been in an awful lot of pain and been feeling very down, tired and lethargic. I'm very upbeat although having so many conditions and I don't let it bring me down, even though I work a full-time job 8 til 5 everyday. I've been having problems with blood tests, platelet counts, that kind of thing.
I was aware that I had the antibodies for Hypothyroidism as I had the test for that about a year ago and I knew it was just a matter of time before I developed it. Upon my most recent blood tests, my TSH level was 47.7 - ten times the top end of the normal limit. I've literally just started levothyroxine but, as you can imagine, I feel completely overloaded with health issues and like my head is going to explode and quite down about it all.
I'm sorry to give you my life story but I was just wondering if any one else has any of the other conditions I have and how they manage with all of them?
Also - how should I have been feeling with a TSH of 47.7? Should I have been feeling VERY different because, like I said, I always feel fairly tired and down due to the combination of illnesses. Any advice at all would be appreciated - I feel massively alone with this.
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I'm a 24 year old female. I've been trying to figure out what is wrong with me for years. Two doctors, and two dentists, suggested that I may have an autoimmune disease, but I've had no diagnosis. I am wondering what autoimmune disease in particular this might be closest to. I've had these symptoms for a long time:
- Mild arthritis in right hand (since 17 years old) - maybe once a year, my fingers unexpectedly become swollen and arthritic, and then it goes away after a few weeks. It was most severe a few years ago, when my fingers became very swollen, hot, itchy and red, but it eventually calmed down and has not since returned with the same severity. My fingers in this hand are tilted towards the side, the joints have bended a little a bit sideways. Both of my hands and fingers are always very cold.
- Chronic fatigue
- A skin rash, cluster of small red bumps, that comes and goes on the side of legs. Also get random isolated red bumps throughout the body.
- Underweight and can't easily gain, though this might be genetic. I've always been underweight.
- Hair loss (began at age 18)
- Brain fog
- Vision getting blurrier / sensitive to light
- Eyes sore and red especially in the morning
- Poor looking skin
- Chronic sinusitis for the past 3 years. No cure or known cause (allergies were ruled out) - the sinusitis and red eyes clear up on steroids and antibiotics, but come back afterwards. So possibly a bacterial cause.
- Low blood pressure, low body temperature (96.5 - 97.5 on average)
- Tooth decay. I've had a lot of tooth cavities since I was a teen. I often wonder if tooth decay is the underlying cause of all of my problems. I've had many fillings and a root canal, but continue to have seemingly never ending problems with my teeth. My oral hygiene habits are extremely thorough though, and I try my best to prevent the cavities. I do everything I can to keep my mouth and teeth clean; electric toothbrush, brushing, flossing, special mouthwash, special toothpastes, etc.
I eat a relatively healthy diet and take vitamins and nutritional supplements. I've been experimenting to find the best diet to cope with this..whatever it is. I notice my health and energy levels are very dependent on how well I eat. If I eat junk food, or even the standard American diet, I feel very ill, exhausted and can't function. I can't have "treats" like a cookie or brownie, doing so could make me feel miserable for the next 24 hours. I keep myself semi-functioning by eating as simple and clean of a diet as possible, and consuming a lot of fruit and vegetables every day, along with tea and coffee.
My top two suspicions are that this is all a manifestation of tooth bacteria, or Celiac disease. Or maybe both. Most dentists don't believe that tooth bacteria would cause such an elaborate array of health problems, but I think it might be possible. I've heard of meningitis and heart disease caused by tooth decay. All of my symptoms started after I started to get severe tooth cavities, it was after having a root canal when I began to have severe hair falling out, and from then on my health went downhill. I had a blood test for celiac by a gastrointestinal doctor and they told me the results were negative. I never had an intestinal biopsy.
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I'm sick all the time, flu like symptoms, achy joints, headaches, tired all the time, fatigue.
lab results
Ana titer 1:640 speckled
anti-dna titer 1:20
ra- neg
everything else is neg and normal. What can be wrong with me?
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I am a 20 year old female. for the past 8 months i have had pains in my legs shooting down from my buttocks to my knees in both legs but is worse in my left leg but only while I'm sitting down and after i sit for 10 minutes i start to get pins and needles in my left foot and it is starting to happen more frequently and more painfully as time goes by it makes it hard to drive anywhere and painful to be sitting down. I have had a full spinal MRI and my spine is normal.
i feel like I'm always sick and when i get a cold/flu it never goes away at the moment i have a cough sore throat headaches which i have taken antibiotics for and it went away after 2 weeks of antibiotics but as soon as i stopped taking them it came back even worse. I am constantly yawning and tired.
I had a blood test and my WBC count was low 1.6 but everything else in the test came back normal negative for arthritis. The doctor has said to have another test but he said the low WBC count is most likely just low because of a virus?I have also been loosing hair. It is all making me stressed so the hair loss could be because of that but i don't know are all these symptoms connected? Could the pins and needles and pains be from lupus or another autoimmune disease? i am sick of going to doctors and spending money on MRIs which are useless.
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Are these anti-bodies found in people that do not have lupus? I have both, but the numbers are very low, so they're not flagged. I've seen in a number of places online that anti-dsDNA and anti-sm are pretty exclusive to Lupus.
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I was diagnosed with low B12 levels and further tests revealed that I had intrinsic factor.
I was given the 6 injection course and was told I would have another in 12 weeks then again and then blood tested again. 6 weeks since my last injection and my symptoms are back. Feeling vague, tired, lethargic, irritated etc. How can it be that I have intrinsic factor but obviously have low B12?
is it likely something else is going on? - any ideas/suggestions?
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I had sinus allergies , brain fog, inability to gain weight and just general fatigue when i was diagnosed with celiac disease an year back through biopsy and blood tests. I have been gluten free since then.
I weigh around 130 lbs. at 183 m.
My other test results are:
1.Severely deficient in vitamin D at 5.4 levels, for which i am taking supplements.
2. Normal T3 and T4 but T3 in the in the lower range at 112 (80-200 is normal).
3. High Anti peroxidase antibodies at 104
4. High TSH at 7.1
I don't know what to make of low Vitamin D and thyroid tests. Do i have a thyroid condition too or is it just due to my celiac disease? Despite being gluten free, i have not put on any weight until now. I feel just generally down, fatigued, anxious, and have difficulty keeping up with demands of day to day life. I was just wondering if i could do anything to rectify these symptoms.
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I have never had any issues with my kidneys other than a few kidney stones,,and pretty frequent uti's..like bladder infections. I went to my primary care provider in mid December and she did bloodwork. It was done 12/18. My eGFR is 23!! And my creatinine is 2.26. I have an appointment with a nephrologist on Tuesday and I'm just worried. My only symptom is that I wake up slightly nauseous almost daily. Anyone she'd any light on this?
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Curious if anyone knows what it means to have high sodium levels and Addison's disease? My sodium levels came back at 238 I've had more testing done but this one was the more extreme in numbers.
Anyone else have high sodium results?
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I have a heart rate most of the time from 42 to 50 BPM , my blood pressure is usually 145 to 160 over 75 to 80. My cardiologist has me taking 75 mg, of Lopressor, 360 mg, of verapamil, .4 mg nitroglycerin patch. And now he wants to add 10 mg of Ramipril ( Altace ) a day, my recent cardiograms have have shown sinus bradycardia. That's before starting the Ramipril , I'm just very leary about starting the Ramipril in first of all the highest dose there is, and second of all it could further lower my heart rate and send my heart into an AV Block that could lead to many things not good !
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i am not overweight. Drink a healthy smoothie and whole grain cereal almost every morning yet my BP is still high. (100/170). I was told it may be because of elevated insulin levels caused by the fruit drinks and whole grains (as well as the potato, rice, pasta and breads) that I eat. These are things that easily break down into sugars and cause the issue. (Basically a carb issue). Am I supposed to go on one of those caveman diets? Has anyone tried lowering their carb intake to lower their BP?
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