ANA Screen, IFA POSITIVE.

[DuraVita]

I recently had blood work to try and determine the cause to my high resting heart rate.

They did an ANA screen which from the title is positive.

They did a titer which was 1:160 (nuclear dots, homogenous and speckled patterned.

My PP was referring me to a  rheumatologist but I can’t even afford to walk in the door as a new patient let alone blood-work.

Is this test serious and something I need to keep investigating?

[mkh9]

Hi, the ANA test can become positive for a lot of reasons. It comes up positive with autoimmune disease but also with Lyme and various other things. Hepatitis and several skin diseases. A positive titer of 1:160 or less is present in up to 20% of the population. So it usually is higher if you have a disease. So it may mean nothing. Do you have any other health issues? The speckled pattern is usually in Lupus. But since the titer is low it doesn't mean anything by itself. You would have to be positive for about 6 other tests such as blood complement, RA, anti_DNA, and several other tests before you accept that you are positive for this. A biopsy isn't good enough by itself either. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.
mkh9