I have been pretty severely impacted by what I call a full body flare for about two months and the doc give me an IV drip of medrol (125 I think) and put me back on prednisone. A week later I went in to have my blood work done and he had ordered a RF test and an ANA and sed rate. When I got the results in the mail (my HMO always sends them out with the doctor's comments) my sed rate was 55 indicating good degree of inflammation and my RFactor was 485. His comments about that was "really high result". Any of you able to give me some comparables in your cases. I realize a lot of you are seronegative, which I was at first five years ago. I know my RA is agressive but this seems really high.That does seem amazingly high! I'm seronegative, well and truly. My last sed
rate was 5 and my RF is 8
I have a RF of 495 and the RD notes "grossly elevated", but my sed rate is always normal....go figure. My RA is controlled on Enbrel and I do worry at times about such a high RF. Sounds like you are really struggling with a bad flare. Are you on any DMARDS??? With a high RF, aggressive treatment is neccessary usually.
Debb
Hi Debb. I have just started Arava after being taken off both Remicade and MTX. He also put me on prednisone to try to control the pain and inflammation. They don't like me on prednisone because of my blood sugar counts (pre-diabetic) but need to find something that doesn't kill my immune system like the MTX did. We'll see what happens with Arava. Yep - really struggling is what I have been doing. I was ready to 'cash in my chips' but of course just wanted some help and attention, which I now have. What a way to get some attentionI'll ask what my numbers are after next blood work in mid oct.
Any lurkers reading this who suspect they may have RA but afraid to go get it checked out.
DON'T WAIT. GO NOW. DON'T DO WHAT I DID.
I can only ditto Hulagirl on the don't wait thing. My dinking around with my symptoms for nearly a year has left me disabled with permanent deformities.
At the time of diagnosis, with deformities mind you! My Rf was 17 (big whoop) I remember my sed rate was high as well. I don't recall the number anymore as I was diagnosed in Oct of 2001.
Nearly four years later my sed rate was 14 the last time it was tested and my RF was was over 300.
As an FYI most, but by no means all, Dr.'s don't generally follow your RF. A positive result isn't likely to change (convert to negative).
Wow, Hulagirl. Over 1000? As sick as I was, you must have been one sick little puppy. I really have no idea if the RF is just a diagnostic thing or whether it means you have agressive RA or whatever. I can see the purpose of the sed rate test because that indicates inflammation. My sed rate test was done one week after I received solumedrol (or whatever its name is) by IV drip. Are there degrees of positive for RF? Guess I will have to bring this up to my rheumy. I see him in two weeks.yeah, i was a mess. i asked my rd what highest RF she ever saw. said 12,000. CAN YOU IMAGINE????????????
12,000?!
Sewez, the degrees of positive are largely academic. There are weakly positive (as mine was)
just plain positive
and then strongly positive such as Hulagirl's. The higher the number the more apt you are to have what are called "extra articular" symptoms. Which just means that places on your body will become involved besides your joints.
As an example a +Rf will correlate to nodules, heart and lung involvement, or eye involvement ( ***this disease affects much more than your joints!***) more frequently than RF- people.
Higher levels don't always correlate with the severity of the disease process.
Hulagirl - just out of interest -you said, don't do what i did, get it checked straight away - what did you do? Did you wait a while?yes. I waited a long time. At first I just thought if I ignored it, it would go away. Well, for a long time I thought that. Then I tried to self-medicate myself with "natural" products. When it got really bad, I lost my med insurance. And I was sure I had a hundred other terminal diseases by then (I have white-coat phobia). Anyway, I was a mess when I finally saw a dr.
That's why I worry about you getting a dx and treatment. Well, at least within the next couple of years. Mine was agressive, so can't compare with everyone. Four years from first knee pain to seeing a doc.
that's horrible for you, i didn't know, i totally understand why you took the approach you did though, it's very difficult to decide what to do, if you don't have the support of the people on this forum it's confusing and frightning and hard to figure out what's right and wrong.
Yes. I often think if I had "met" the people here, and www.rafriends,com now, back when I first had symptoms, I would not be in the condition I am today. Not only for the education and support, but the fear. I had so much fear. It kept me from seeking help. And I think everyone would have helped me overcome that. I had listened to "friends" tell me horror stories about how the dr's would put long needles in my knees...and things like that, and I freaked. Didn't take much to give me a reason to go in denial.
So, I want to encourage others to go seek medical help right away. And then there are those like you. Who do. And you still can't get any help, and it frustrates me to no end. I sit here and think what can we do? Somehow get you to a dr. who will understand and not go strictly by the blood work? But who and how? I admire you for continuing to fight, even without family support.
thank you so much, that really encouraged me for you to say than - its hard.