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Are Fatigue, Sharp Chest Pain And Headache Signs Of SLE?
Question: I suspect I have SLE. my symptoms include, fatigue, raynauds disease, psoriasis, osteo arthritis, dyshidrotic eczema with hot temp expsure, increased NK cells, infertility, anaemia, occasional sharp chest pain, headaches, occasional forgetfulness and inability to concentrate. should I see my GP?
Brief Answer:
Some information:
Detailed Answer:
Hello and welcome,
I am looking thru your symptoms and thinking about this.
I am surprised that you have osteoarthritis at the age of 40.
Have you already had some work-up done as you know you have increased natural killer cells which is not a routine test.
Some thoughts are that you may have an underlying autoimmune disorder. It may not be Lupus, but may be a number of autoimmune or immune dysfunctions including chronic fatigue syndrome. Sometimes a specific autoimmune disorder is not found, even after evaluation.
I would suggest pursuing 2 lines of evaluation: immunology/rheumatology and also endocrinology.
I am a family practice doctor, but the initial labs I would look into would be a rheumatology panel to include an erythrocyte sedimentation rate (we call it Sed rate here or ESR) to get an idea of degree of inflammation (this does not provide any diagnosis as ESR increases with infections, etc, but can give general information about inflammation in the body), and ANA (antinuclear antibody). I would also recommend a TSH and T4 or T3 to see how your thyroid is doing.
But yes, although your symptoms don't automatically fit nicely into an obvious category, it would be reasonable to tell your GP that you are interested in pursuing whether there is one underlying disorder.
A few of the things do go together such as anemia (is it from heavy periods?) and fatigue, but it doesn't explain everything.
I hope this helps.
Some information:
Detailed Answer:
Hello and welcome,
I am looking thru your symptoms and thinking about this.
I am surprised that you have osteoarthritis at the age of 40.
Have you already had some work-up done as you know you have increased natural killer cells which is not a routine test.
Some thoughts are that you may have an underlying autoimmune disorder. It may not be Lupus, but may be a number of autoimmune or immune dysfunctions including chronic fatigue syndrome. Sometimes a specific autoimmune disorder is not found, even after evaluation.
I would suggest pursuing 2 lines of evaluation: immunology/rheumatology and also endocrinology.
I am a family practice doctor, but the initial labs I would look into would be a rheumatology panel to include an erythrocyte sedimentation rate (we call it Sed rate here or ESR) to get an idea of degree of inflammation (this does not provide any diagnosis as ESR increases with infections, etc, but can give general information about inflammation in the body), and ANA (antinuclear antibody). I would also recommend a TSH and T4 or T3 to see how your thyroid is doing.
But yes, although your symptoms don't automatically fit nicely into an obvious category, it would be reasonable to tell your GP that you are interested in pursuing whether there is one underlying disorder.
A few of the things do go together such as anemia (is it from heavy periods?) and fatigue, but it doesn't explain everything.
I hope this helps.
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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