Coming in here a little late on this but wanted to add my two cents. I have had a positive ANA (which by the way stands for anti nuclear antibodies)and then of course it went negative. I however had a very messed up thyroid and when it was treated the ANA count went down. One rheumatologist told me the thyroid is probable what made the ANA count positive. So it might be something to check.

Just because your ANA count is high and it shows high titers for lupus and for other autoimmune problems does not mean you have those diseases. You have to have a combination of the symptoms to have the disease, the lupus board sticky explains that better than I can. To tell you the truth I don't know what is worse, not having all the symptoms so your diagnosis is CTD (connective tissue disease) and always trying to find the right meds or get a more definitve diagnosis or having the disease and living with the seriousness of it. I think I will stay with my CTD and as the my rheumy sometimes calls it almost lupus and keep searching.

Just wanted to add that sometimes having a family member that had an Autoimmune disease makes you more likely to have positive results on ANA but not necessarily a definitive disease. For instance my grandmother had and died from Scleraderma in 1957, the docs barely knew what it was then but it makes my ANA test come out high titers for Scleraderma, also lupus and polymyositis with scleraderma overlap. Reading my test would scare you to death......but I think they all use to look like that. Now my rheumy does a different blood test not so scary. OK, I'm getting carried away here. Hope this helps.

Glojer