undetermined autoimmune disease in 7 yr old

[Monie1111]

Hi,
My 7 year old daughter had a bad cause of flu in October 09.  In January 2010 she came down with a high fever and head ache and never did get over it.  She had an elevated ANA and ASO.  We finally saw the pediatric rheumatologist April 9th.  She said she had an undetermined autoimmune disease and was put on plaquinil.  We will see the ped rheum. again in June and do more blood tests.  What are my daughter's chances of her immune system going back to normal?  Will she always feel arthritic and weak.  Is the doctor waiting to see what her body does before she actually gives her a diagnosis?  

Thanks, Monica

[Garth L Nicolson, PhD]

The problem may be that your daughter still has a chronic infection that has eluded diagnosis.  Eventually this may have evolved to an autoimmune situation.  Since the autoimmune effects result in many of the observable signs/symptoms, the usual response is to place the patient on immune-suppressing drugs to control the symptoms.  However, if she does have an undiagnosed chronic infection, this may do little in the long run to reverse the clinical condition, requiring the patient to stay on immune-suppressing drugs.  

There have been other posts in this section on some possible alternatives to just using immune suppression to control symptoms.

[Garth L Nicolson, PhD]

Amoxicillin will only be useful against some of the pathogens I suggested might be causing the problem.  If this doesn't work, then there are other Abx that may be more useful.

[Monie1111]

Thank you for your quick response.  She was put on amoxicillin for 2 months for high strep antibody titers.  I do not know what the current levels are right now.