Hi all:
I'm new here...sorry to be joining you. I have not been diagnosed with lupus, but over the past few months SOMETHING has gone haywire. I have had sinus infection, a skin infection, bilateral pain in my elbows (I can't sleep with them bent or I wake up in extreme pain), a salivary gland infection, and 3 cases of what I thought were conjunctivitis. The last time I went to the eye doc for conjunctivitis he sent me to a specialist who said my eyes were extremely dry. I brought this up with a close friend, who is also an eye doc, and told her that it was odd that I had been told I had very dry eyes as the doctor who diagnosed my salivary gland infection said I had an extremely dry mouth. So my friend the eye doc told me to get a test for Sjogren's.
In the meantime, I developed a low fever and night sweats, but at the moment I have no other symptoms.
In any event, I got the blood test, turned out negative for SSA and SSB, as well as ANA, but "weakly positive" (45.3) for anti-ds DNA antibody.
I guess my question is whether it is possible to be negative for ANA but positive for anti-ds DNA and have lupus? I thought they went hand-in-hand...
I'm new here...sorry to be joining you. I have not been diagnosed with lupus, but over the past few months SOMETHING has gone haywire. I have had sinus infection, a skin infection, bilateral pain in my elbows (I can't sleep with them bent or I wake up in extreme pain), a salivary gland infection, and 3 cases of what I thought were conjunctivitis. The last time I went to the eye doc for conjunctivitis he sent me to a specialist who said my eyes were extremely dry. I brought this up with a close friend, who is also an eye doc, and told her that it was odd that I had been told I had very dry eyes as the doctor who diagnosed my salivary gland infection said I had an extremely dry mouth. So my friend the eye doc told me to get a test for Sjogren's.
In the meantime, I developed a low fever and night sweats, but at the moment I have no other symptoms.
In any event, I got the blood test, turned out negative for SSA and SSB, as well as ANA, but "weakly positive" (45.3) for anti-ds DNA antibody.
I guess my question is whether it is possible to be negative for ANA but positive for anti-ds DNA and have lupus? I thought they went hand-in-hand...