ANA are auto antibodies. We all have antibodies that attack foreign invaders & fight off infections and viruses. Auto-antibodies are antibodies that instead attack our own bodies. Specifically, rather than attacking foreign invaders they attack normal proteins in our own cells and cause inflammation and destruction.

The test for ANA is how they start checking for autoimmune disease. It is used to start checking for Lupus, or Scleroderma and a host of other AI diseases

It gets a bit complex. ANA is considered clinically positive at a titer of 1:80 but most doctors will not find that reading clinically significant. A clue perhaps but one that is oftentimes dismisses...

ANA can show up in healthy or elderly people but at low titers, usually 1:40 or 1:80. Once you start getting up to 1:160 or 1:320 the results are taken far more seriously especially if you also have symptoms of AI disease!

ANA is found in 98% of those with Lupus. There are a rare few that don’t have a positive ANA but they will be positive for different antibodies. It’s hard for these people to get treatment since they are often dismissed because of the negative ANA but thankfully it is very uncommon to have ANA negative Lupus.

ANA also fluctuates. Mine recently went from 1:80 to 1:320 in 2-3 weeks time for no reason. It can also go from positive to negative, sometime from medications like steroids and sometimes for no reason at all

If you’ve had an ANA test and it is 1:80 or greater and you have symptoms, you want a doctor to start testing you for AI diseases! If you had the test and it is negative, that’s probably a good thing! Unless you are very symptomatic. In that case, push to have it repeated in a few months to see if it is still negative. If so, the cause of any problems might be something other than autoimmune disease

You are welcome Crystalc16!

I was so confused when I started out this year and info seemed hard to find or often contradictory....so I dove into deep reading hoping to understand ANA and the different tests the run for Lupus. I hope the info helped 😊

@A MyLupusTeam Member

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A MyLupus...

Wow. Thank you so much for the information!!

I also have high reading