Increased anti-bodies in blood for more than a year?
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- Anonymous poster #1
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Increased anti-bodies in blood for more than a year?Can someone please help me? I feel like i've had a cold/flu for more than a year. My hair sheds, my periods are not normal (either late, or i don't loose enough blood) my ears ring sometimes, My vision is slightly blurry, i sweat alot, i get depressed and anxious for no reason, i have bags under my eyes. I feel like a menopausal woman (I'm 19 -.-)
Blood tests Thyroid - Normal
Antibody count - Positive
Other tests - Normal
What does the anti-body mean? I have a rare virus or what? The symtpoms have been going on for too long, i'm worried it might be something else.
Thyroid doctor has increased my dose of thyroxine to 50, he says my thyroid is in the low range of normal and said increased anti-bodies in people are normal, but i definately don't feel normal. -
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Re: Increased anti-bodies in blood for more than a year?Hair loss and abnormal periods sounds like stress to me. You said you get depressed and anxious a lot so that's probably what's causing those two. Have you had your eyesight checked?
What has your doctor said about those things?
Antibodies are the cool little soldiers that kill the bad guys in your body. So usually a high antibody count would mean your body is fighting something. I think I read something about the count staying high for a bit after the body has dealt with the problem too... But it's not abnormal or anything. Just take the medication your doctor gave you for a while and see what happens.Last edited by Strawberrycayk; 24-07-2012 at 15:08. -
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Re: Increased anti-bodies in blood for more than a year?The meaning of the test result depends what kind of antibodies they are. Antibodies are specific to particular infections (eg particular flu strains, hepatitis B, etc etc), or sometimes to particular body tissues (autoantibodies), so you need to know what type of antibodies they were testing for. Since you are on thytroxine, were these thyroid autoantibodies?
Secondly, some classes of antibodies are only found at high levels during an active infection, while others are designed to stay elevated for years after exposure to an infection or immunisation (eg sometimes they test for particular antibody levels to check that immunisations are still working). So depending on what class of antibodies is elevated, this may or may not indicate an active inflammatory process going on.
