Question | Arthritis Information

Yesterday I saw my new Rheumatologist. She took me off Celebrex and Plaquenil. She thinks that I dont have RA even though my RA factor was positive. She did agree that I have a good case of Fibro however. If I have a positive RA factor and I don't have any of the other problems associated with a positive RA factor, how is it that I do not have RA?

Lesle

I know that there are other factors that make you have ra. There is like a check list and you have to have a certain amount of things on the list and ra factor is just a small thing.TERESA

May I ask what your symptoms are?

Susan

How do you feel?

This might help

ACR Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnostic Criteria

RA Diagnosis requires four of the following
Symptoms that must be present for at least 6 weeks
1. Morning stiffness in and around joints for >= 1 hour
  1. Most common presenting symptom
2. Symmetric swelling of joints
  1. Most common presenting sign
3. Soft tissue swelling of at least three joint areas
  1. PIP joint
  2. MCP joint
  3. Wrist joint
  4. Elbow joint
  5. Knee joint
  6. Ankle joint
  7. MTP joint
4. Swelling of mcp, pip or wrist joints
Signs that may be present at any time
1. Rheumatoid nodules present
2. rheumatoid factor positive
3. X-ray changes
  1. x-ray changes
  2. Bone erosions
  3. bone decalcification
    1. Especially involving the hands and wrists

I believe the RF test is one of those where there's a fairly high number of "false positive" test results. That is, a certain percentage of people taking the test show up as positive when in fact they are not, and a certain percentage of those taking the test will have a negative test result when in fact they are postiive. Could be that you're not positive at all. If memory serves, they usually have you take the test two or three different times to see if they get the same result. It's not the labs fault. Just one of those flukes in testing.

See http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/rheumat oid/test.html