Child Having Muscle Pain, Difficulty In Urination. Low Creatinine Levels, High MCH And CRP Levels. Is It Lupus?

Posted on Sun, 24 Jun 2012

Question: My 11 yr old daughter had tests done. Her Lymph Auto came in low at 34.4 and Creatinine was also low at .43 whereas her MCH levels are high at 28.3. Her XXXXXXX is positive and CRP is high at 1.2. What does this mean? Does she have lupus? She has complained of muscle/arthritis type pain for two years. Also, she has problems voiding. Often still feeling like she is full after emptying her bladder. Sometimes the urine won't release. No infections were found in her urine.

Answered by Dr. Hema Yadav (2 hours later)

Hello,

Thanks for posting your query.

Considering her reports and history of complaints there is a possibility of her suffering from one of the autoimmune connective tissue disorders like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis or dermatomyositis or mixed connective tissue disorder.
XXXXXXX (Anti- Nuclear Antibodies) and CRP (C - reactive protein) tests are sensitive screening tests which are done as baseline investigations; they are not very specific and can be positive in all above mentioned diseases and some other conditions.

Her blood counts (lymphocyte and mean corpuscular hemoglobin or MCH) and creatinine may be deranged by any systemic infection or illness. So that too will not specify lupus.

For ruling out lupus your doctor may advise few more blood tests like anti ds-dna (Anti double stranded DNA antibody), rheumatoid factor, anti-cyclic citrullinated protein antibodies (Anti CCP) etc.

I would advise you to follow up with her doctor and further investigate to confirm the diagnosis.

Her bladder complaints may or may not be related to the systemic illness and needs evaluation by a urologist and if necessary, voiding urogram etc.

Hope I have answered your query.

Regards

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Shanthi.E