Hi, I know this post is old but just incase someone else comes across this...
The ANA test is not to test for inflammation. The CRP (C-Reactive Protein) tests for inflammation. An ANA test detects antinuclear antibodies in your blood. Your immune system normally makes antibodies to help you fight infection. In contrast, antinuclear antibodies often attack your body's own tissues — specifically targeting each cell's nucleus. (per Mayo Clinics website)
Put simply this test is looking for protein in your blood that destroys the nuclei of your cells.
It is possible to test positive on an ANA test without having any symptoms of sickness (seemingly healthy) but if you have tested positive at some point in life you will more than likely begin to have symptoms of an autoimmune disease.
Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disease so it makes perfect sense that the ANA test woud come back positive with this disease.
I've had low titer ANAs 1:80 along with some other indicators that inflammation was going on (C-reactive protein and elevated sed. rate). Were other tests like these run on you and were they positive?
Looking back, I think the explanation for all three tests to be slightly abnormal was that something autoimmune was going on. For me, I think it was the thyroid problem that I was diagnosed years later after the initial symptoms, but I'll never know for sure.
Thank You.
Please Take Care, Theresa
The positive ANA may likely mean nothing. Many healthy people have a low positive titer like 1:32 or 1:64. People with real inflammatory disease almost always have a very high ANA titer (as high or higher than 1:320)
MS is NOT statstically associated with positive ANA titers. Period.
People with MS may have low-positive ANA's, just as people in the general population can have them.
To clarify what Alex said, the ANA is a marker for some Inflammatory Diseases, but is not a marker for inflammation itself, like the Sed Rate or the CRP (C-Reactive Protein).
Quix
A positive ANA just means you have inflammation. The DNA being negative rules out Lupus which they look for with a positive ANA. I had a positive ANA and a very strong LP which told the Doctors I had a lot of inflammation. My DNA was negative plus I had no symptoms of Lupus. They have to take tests and symptoms and match them for a diagnosis. MS is mostly a diagnosis of exclusion of all other diseases.
Alex