Medicinal Dodgeball

Guess what?  I don't have lupus!  (Ahem.)

Allow me to rephrase that.

I don't have lupus yet!  

So, I met with the fabulous Dr. H again this morning after waiting, twitchily, in the waiting area for a good forty-five minutes because they were down one doctor.   Then, once they cleared the backlog, she sat down to give me a good chat about my blood work.

As it turns out, the lupus antibody panel wasn't clear, but it wasn't indicative of lupus.  I had a negative test result for my anti-DNA, anti-SM, and all those other proteins that start to sound like antimatter and physics to me, and the other things we checked on (the rheumatoid arthritis and a syphilis test) came back negative, too.

But, as with everything regarding autoimmune testing, there's always one catch: I have an abnormal anti-centromere antibody level.  As far as I can tell, that's the presence of antibodies that attack the centromere, the sticky little protien glob that holds the chromosomes together.

According to my super-accurate and reliable Google search (wink), a positive anti-centromere result usually shows up with people with the two types of scleroderma (which seems pretty freaking unlikely) and Raynaud's disease.  And, as it turns out, I have had dead, white-looking fingers once, so that seems to be the culprit.  But, as we all know, Raynaud's phenomenon also occurs in people with lupus, so I am far from off the hook.  All my tests have confirmed, it seems, is that I am in fact suffering from some symptoms common to lupus, and that's it.

Due to the vagaries of student insurance (my university is re-bidding our insurance) I can't get in to see a rheumatologist until August if I don't want to pay for it out of pocket because there's always a chance a new provider won't cover my doctor.  So, here's to more waiting!