and all

[Guest guest]

Found this paragraph in the Shomon book - Living well with

autoimmune disease and this might be the answer you have been looking

for:

pg 213

Subclinical autoimmune disease

snip

A subclinical autoimmune disease would mean that laboratory tests

might be slightly abnormal - but still within a normal range - or

many but not all of the required symptoms for diagnosis are present.

So, laboratory tests and clinical signs cannot support an official

diagnosis. But the signs are there that the autoimmune attack is

already under way, and some signs and symptoms of a condition are

already present. This is a phenomenon seen commonly in Hashimoto's

disease, for example, where the presence of antithyroid antibodies,

even with normal thyroid function tests, may indicate subclinical

autoimmune thyroid disease, and its sufferers can experience the full

range of hypothyroidism symptoms. Those same symptoms frequently will

improve after treatment with low-dose thyroid hormone replacement.

She also talks about how many times if you have one autoimmune

disease you might have some symptoms of other autoimmune illnesses at

some time or another but not all the symptoms. That makes sense.

Louise