Hello again

[Twice]

Hi Sangye! Hope you're doing a b it better than last time I was around.

Al, yeah, ANCA has always been a bit hit and miss with me. I've had positive cANCA, pANCA, negative everything when I'm at my illest and positives when I feel OK. I was diagnosed again this week after a bronchoscopy and we've only just done my first ANCA test in over a year - really out of curiosity rather than as a diagnostic tool.

I may be talking out of my behind here, but over the years I've been increasingly of the opinion that WG is a pretty loose diagnosis. I've variously been diagnosed as having PAN with WG symptoms, WG with PAN symptoms or just the catch-all "autoimmune vasculitis", which I tend to prefer.

[Sangye]

The problem is that the Wegs dog doesn't know how to read, so he doesn't always follow the rules.

[Al]

The problem is that the Wegs dog doesn't know how to read, so he doesn't always follow the rules.

Excellent comment, Sangye--pithy and, as always, to the point. Also, it speaks to a current pique of mine, inspired by several recent threads: Specific diagnoses are for the convenience of the treatment prescriber, and not a definitive statement about the nature of the disease itself. It is, essentially, fitting the square meal of the symptoms into the round can of standard therapeutic protocols. As you say, the Wegs Dog (I'll put both words in caps) doesn't read, and will claim its territory when and why and as it will--never mind what the textbooks say. Thus, there is, and must be, substantial overlap of symptoms across many committee-agreed disease designations. No matter. We are all weggies, with--like everything human--many similarities and many differences. And, when we hurt, we hurt.

Al

[drz]

The problem is that the Wegs dog doesn't know how to read, so he doesn't always follow the rules.

Is that why we often refer to it as that stupid disease?

[Al]

Is that why we often refer to it as that stupid disease?

Let's just say that nature is not obliged to attend to human sensitivities....

Al