Hi,
My Wife was previously diagnosed with Hypothyroidism which was successfully treated with Synthroid for some time. A precursor to this was numerous miscarriages with no obvious cause, after taking matters into our own hands an endocrinologist diagnosed the condition and treated it resolving the painful repeated miscarriage concern completely.
Following the birth of our child, her tsh level has fluctuated a great deal, as is probably expected. It has now mostly stabilized 9 months after, but, for several months she has been complaining of heavy joint pain especially in small joints (hands and fingers, etc), dizziness, fatigue.
Visiting a local GP for B.W. exhibited a very high ANA value. This concerns me greatly, as they feel it is likely Rheumatoid Arthritis, not something anyone would want to be diagnosed with - let alone this young. (She is 38 this month, with a 9 month old child to care for!).
Her values are as follows,
ANA:
Speckled: 1:320
Centromere: 1:320
Rheumatoid Factor 6 (<14 iu/ml)
T-4 Total 8.3 (4.5-12.5mcg/dl)
T-3 Free 292 (230-420 pg/dl)
TSH (3rd Generation?) 2.15 (.40-4.50 <- this lab seems to be using the range that got us in trouble previously ..)
The only other value that is high is Alkaline Phosphatase at 153.
Being that it will be some time before a specialist is able to discuss these values, I wanted to post a message here and see what type of professional feedback is available. We attempted to make an appointment with our trusted Endocrine specialist who said they cannot assist with anything related to the ANA value, even though they were very helpful in the past. An appointment has been made with a new Rheumatologist now.
My understanding is the ANA values shown, could be representative of the existing treatable condition. (I would prefer that be the case over the alternatives!)
Where would you go from here? What additional tests could be potentially ordered from a GP to help with diagnosing any potential problems sooner?