I was told by my Rheumy that one day it can be high and another day be low. It can fluctuate everyday. Also you can be in remission and have all the symptoms still. Good thing about remission is that it is not getting worse at the minute

If you get a negative ANA result and it was not done by IFA, then it is critically important that you confirm the negative ANA result by re-running the ANA using IFA, which looks for many more signs that would assist in a more accurate diagnosis.

This can all be confusing, if you have a doc who won't go into detail regarding the lab or any other results of your Lupus, please move on to another. The old doc won't be sad, they'll be glad they don't have to give advice about things they don't specialize in.

You are your best advocate for yourself, as well as using the many resources here from others experiences, the people on the site who've gone through the same and similar problems. After becoming a nurse, when I made an appointment with a doc, I told the receptionist that I was coming to interview the doctors competency for my conditions and for his interaction with me. They were all flabbergasted. Really? The docs happen to be my potential employee, and I go through intensive repeated interviews for my jobs, and rightly so. I find that odd, that docs feel above that common practice. I was once reminded that a doc gets a degree whether he's a C student or an A student. And that they are only practicing, I don't want to be someone they practice on, I want someone who is competent in the areas that I am coming to her/him for. Docs never mention their GPA to patients.

The part that I wanted to learn more about was "A homogenous (diffuse) pattern appears as total nuclear fluorescence and is common in people with systemic lupus ". I know what homogenous means but had to look it up for information regarding what that statement is referring to in an ANA test.

They also stated that "No single finding qualifies an individual as having SLE. Instead, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has devised certain classification criteria, and four or more of these criteria must be present for a classification of lupus. [The term “classification” is not synonymous with “diagnosis.” “Classification” means that reasonable certainty exists for the diagnosis of lupus for research purposes.]
I'm a part of Lupus research? Not what I was hoping for, being a participant of research.

Many prayers and best of luck. There are a lot of people here who can get to the point faster than me, so pardon my verbosity.

Johns Hopkins Lupus Center Lupus Blood Tests. (2012). The John Hopkins Lupus center. Noted at: https://www.hopkinslupus.org/lupus-tests/lupus-...

According to "The Lupus Encyclopedia" (by Dr. Donald E.Thomas, published by John Hopkins), the ANA ratio indicates if a person is positive for an autoimmune disease; the higher the second number (titer), the more likely a person is to have a disease like SLE...most labs (according to this book) consider a titer of 1:40 or greater to be positive. "For example, a person who has an ANA of greater than 1:1280 is much more likely to have an autoimmune or inflammatory disease (like SLE) than is a person with an ANA of 1:160" (pg.72)

I don't know exactly what that means, but in the book it goes on to explain how the test is conducted, what the numbers indicate and what your doctor will be looking for in the results.

It seems they're testing you for a specific antigen, probably SLE or RA, and the higher number indicates the probability of you having the disease; other tests will confirm that indication...does that help any?

If you are positive, I highly recommend this book, "The Lupus Encyclopedia" (by Dr. Donald E.Thomas, published by John Hopkins)...I got it off Amazon for about $20 and it's been worth every penny!

I wish you the best, encourage you to be brave and remember to smile!

The higher the number, the more diluted the solution is in which they can still find anti-nuclear antibodies. The increase in your ANA titer probably shows your body going anti-nuclear antibody pro! It could mean disease activity is ramping up.

Hi there,
The results of the antibodies that they look for when testing for an autoimmune disease. Mine was like that one day was down and the next two days it was extremely high and I was diagnosed with SLE once my labs came back from a different lab.