ANA Direct - positive abnormal?

Thank you jennifer.. I was wondering about the Hashimoto's and if it can give you a positive ana..

My ana ws 1 in 80 Is this high? I am unable to find the original report to ett ref range but BH did the test.

​TIA. I am hopeless at maths.

1:80 is considered low. The higher the dilution it's positive, the more likely it means something. Like I'm positive at 1:640, meaning my sample was diluted a lot and still came up positive! Hope that helps!

I had the ANA DIRECT done through LAB Corp.  All it said was Positive Abnormal.  There was no titer or staining. Just positive abnormal. That was in January of 2016, the I just had another ANA done, that was called ANA Elisa, a week ago, but it came up negative.  That test was done by my local hospital.  I was wondering why one would be positive and then on a different one be negaitive.  Now at the time that it was positive, I felt awful for about 10 months with low grade fevers, swollen lymph nodes, severe fautigue and I just didn't feel good.  This newer Ana elisa, when I got this one, I felt fine except for swollen and stiff fingers for 1 to 2 hours each morning and nausea after every meal.  My doctor did it at the time to look for RA.  He said I might be in some kind of flare up.  Now the first ANA Direct I got (when I was sick for 10 months) I got because I was worried about Lupus, which my mom and aunt have.  But I never went further then the ana, because I started to feel better, go figure, when I was just starting to get somewhere..lol.  I didn't go any farther with it because I read that if you are not in a flare up, that your test can up negaitive.. not sure if this is true or not?  I did finally find something on the net about that ANA DIRECT test though.  I read that they do it by the Athena Bead staining.  I guess they test the ana through about 9 antigens.  I guess the most relevent ones.  And if any of those antigents at all are over 100 of them, then that makes it positive.  I also found out that that anything under 100 is considered negative, 100 to 120 is equivelent, and anything over 120 is positive.  So I guess my number had to be over 120.  But they don't tell you what antigen that was high or how many of them  ex.. of antigens.. Anti-dsDNA, Anti-La/SS-B, Anti-Ro/SS-A, Anti-Sm, but 9 of them I believe.  Not sure which ones though. Also, the ANA direct is more accurate then other ANA test.  I also found out that if you get a positive ANA Direct that you should immediatly get the ana IFA done.  That would help with identifing which antibody was high, But I didn't at the time, because I didn't know.  ...lol... I guess I'm answering my own question.  I did ALOT of reading yesterday.  But I am still confused about why this ANA elisa is negative?  Can it become negative if I'm not in a flare up after being positive?    Thanks for listining and your reply.  I wanted to write what I found out about the ANA DIRECT because it seems that all over the internet, everything I could find, no one knew anything about it, but wanted to know more about it. 

Interesting, I didn't know about ANA direct. I had all my autoantibodies tested separately after I got the positive ANA titer/staining, so was able to see all the results (all negative fortunately). You're right that the autoantibodies are more informative, since the ANA titer is pretty nonspecific. Could be different autoimmune diseases or nothing at all. I think it is possible that levels fluctuate with flares since I remember reading that certain things are treated to monitor the disease, but I'm not sure specifically. Good luck with this all

Yes.. some places I read that the ana could be negative if not in a flare, and other things I read say no, that once positive, always positive.  Also, I'm wondering if the one test was a false positive or the other a false negative..lol.  I guess I won't be able to.  I'm sure that I will just have to wait until I feel bad again and redo the Ana test.  Next time, I'm going to the ana ifa with the reflex though..I think it will give more info then just a positive or negative..  Boy.. this ANA stuff is really confusing..lol.  Best wishes to you also Jennifer!

Yes.. I'm in the U.S. It was my family doctor that ordered the blood work.  At the Monroe Noxen health center.

In the UK the medical profession don't bother as much. I paid to go privately and the Company had a special deal on offer for antibody testing. The extra cost was only marginal so I decided to go ahead . Nearly fainted when the antibodies came back positive.

Thanks! All this autoimmune stuff is confusing! It's the kind of thing that you have to watch and wait at first ??

Yes.. I might pay privately to get the antibodies tested.  It's so expensive though.  But I guess it would  be worth it if something came back positive.  Lupus is a big one in my family.  My mom and aunt have it. 

Yes.. US.  To get all the antibodies tested here, it's about $700.00 dollars.  I think I'll go for it though.  Your right.  It's so important.

I had a lot of tests done including the antibodies and it cost me £700.