Quote Originally Posted by elephant View Post
I don't know how to start a new thread so here it goes. How do you know if you have a cold or a WG flare. I have sinus involvement, so it is so confusing. Feeling more stuffy and sinus pressure in my left maxillary. Doing the nose rinse and no green/ yellow. A little more tired. If it is a cold how long does it take for it to go away? Since we are all on immunosuppressant medicines, I know it takes awhile. In the last 4 days, I feel my "cold" is not getting better. So confusing?? It's harder when you try to diagnose yourself.
I have GPA that's really been limited to the nose and eustachian tubes. In my case, the question I have had is "how do I know if I am in remission or not?" The short answer is: in my case it's difficult to know. My rheumatologist looks more at my subjective symptoms, my general blood work and urine tests as more indicative of health than the ANCA specific blood work. He is of the opinion that PR3 and C-ANCA levels are imperfect with little predictive value when it comes to flares or assessing actual disease activity. After all, blood tests are a snap shot of a moment in time anyway. In my case, my C-ANCA oscillates between positive and negative every three months or so, my P3R levels are sometime 1/4 of what they were when I was diagnosed or almost as high. Symptoms have remained steady and associated with the initial damage done (eustachian tube dysfunction, some hearing loss, saddle nose deformity, occasional bouts of fatigue). I have had a cold since being diagnosed two years ago: it started as sore throat, slight fever, runny nose peaked in a couple of days and done a few days after that. Nothing like the month long onslaught of mucous production, fatigue and night sweats I had when I first came down with GPA. I think you just have to give things (whatever they are) a few days to run their course...if they don't clear up, then consider getting looked at. (I had both my hips replaced last summer (6 weeks apart) and was expecting to maybe have a little nosedive then from the recovery process, but so far so good.)