| Re: Lupus? Or what else? Confused...
Hello and welcome!
I am not a Dr but know something due to my own battle with health issues and a lot of research done on my own and also due to being a part of couple researches done on me.
First of all, I want to say that many perfectly healthy people have positive ANA, and older we get more false positive ANA are out there.
Second of all, lowering BP drugs and anti-seizure drugs trigger anti body formation, which means your ANA could manifest as positive.
Did your DR knowing that you on anti-seizure medication tell you about it too? I hope he/she did.
Having positive ANA means your immune system has launched misdirected attack on your own tissue. But again, with absolutely healthy people, no disease people may have positive ANA.
I think this is what you have to discuss about with your DR.
Having just the test you shown here, it only one piece of the pazzle. If your Dr presumes you may have any auto-immune disease, he suppose to do further investigation. It suppose to be very extensive blood work which can show the real picture of what is going on in your body.
BTW, do you know that simple Mono causing positive ANA? Any inflammation, as strep can cause same test results? So all this must be checked and discussed.
I have RA and Lupus as well, so I can tell you that a lot more symptoms involved in both of these conditions than positive ANA. Lupus is very easy diagnosed disease, plus it very visual versus RA, which is not an easy one to diagnose, but it manifests with many serious symptoms.
All the best to you; I hope this helps a little
Moldova
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