I have had many blood test done and lab work done over the last 4 months - lets put it this way i have felt horrible for along time now and i have been constantly sick i have missed almost two months of work and am currently out on a medical leave hoping to return soon and not get sick - I have had my ssa come back positve with the ssb being postive also and was sent to a rheumy doctor my lab work then came up negative ssa and positve ssb ! so now i am seeing a neurologist for test - i have tested twice positve and have had two different doctors tell me i have tested positive for sjorgerns but i dont have the dry eyes and mouth - so they will not treat me with meds in the meantime i continue to feel like crap and everyone thinks im crazy cause im sick all the time and they say its in my head - but clearly no one has been living in this nightmare that i have been living in!!! I want to go back to work and feel good i dont paticulary like feeling the way i do and being miserable. I just dont understand WHY i have to see a GI doctor a Rheumatolgist, neurologist, have a sleep test done , and go on and on when i have had blood work come up with sjorgerns syndrome being postive???
sorry for the delayed response.
it won't hurt to ask your doctor to do those specific blood test. it is possible to have a negative ANA and a positive SSA/SSB. Also, the ssa/ssb markers can also indicate other diseases such as lupus. but with your symptoms it does sound like sjorgrens.
do you have dry eyes as well? you can make an appointment with your eye doctor and there is a test they can do called a Schirmer Test. This just measures your tear production and is not painful.
then there are dental related tests they can do to check your amount of saliva and they can do a lip biopsy.
trying to get the blood test done would be a good start. if this is positive you can move forward in having the other tests done.
in the mean time have you tried biotine? they have a special toothpaste, mouthwash, gum and paste for people with moderate to severe dry mouth. i was given this by my dentist, it does help some and actually does not taste bad.
i was first tested for these things on a whim. after some severe pregnancies complications with all 3 of my pregnancies my doctors ran some blood test. ANA, SSA and SSB were some of them. My ANA and SSB were positive. I did not get a diagnosis after this. I was shuffled from doctor to doctor and poked more times than i can even count. As of yesterday my ANA in now negative and my SSB was at 14, which according to my rheumatologist is too low of a level to be considered anything significant.
So as you see, getting a diagnosis is kind of challenging. You have to be prepared to be firm and if you feel something needs to be checked don't back down. You know you body better than anyone else. Good luck.
sorry just want to add, my dry eyes have been confirmed, i do get slighly dry mouth, tongue somtimes goes white and just get small cracks on it, but i seen my mates tongue is the same, how does dry mouth feel exactly? would you feel your tongue very dry?
thanks again
hi
thanks for the reply
they did do an ana test again, still was negative,
why wouldn't they carry out the other tests?
do i need to push for the ssb tests?
many thanks
ask them to do your ana again and an ssa and ssb blood test. both of the ssa and ssb are antibodies found in sjorgens patients. my ana and ssb are positive. however.. if you ana is negative i am not sure if they will do more test. once you have the positive blood test they can do other test such as a lip biopsy but i don't think they will go that far into it if your blood test are negative