Laurie:
As for the persistent anemia.  This muight be pernicious anemia, which
is rare in people under 60, UNLESS they have an autoimmune disorder,
then the likelihood increases dramatically because it is also an
autoimmune disorder.  The anemia is caused because the stomach cannot
absorb B12, thus causing blood (and other) cell structure to weaken.

In my case, it also caused stomach, tongue and esophogeal ulcers before
anyone thought to connect the dots after suffering from anemia from my
early 20's until I was 38.  Doctors kept detecting the anemia, but not
its cause, putting me on iron supplements which really had little
lasting effect.

If any one of them had looked more carefully at the CBC like my  fresh
from med school internist did, they would have found some subscores  not
necessarily consistent with "traditional" anemia.  Then my puppy of a
doctor did the test that is definitive for pernicious, which is called
the Schilling's test and, no surprise to him, it was pernicious.

Every doctor I've seen since insists on asking if I've had this test
because they don't believe that someone under 60 could possibly have
this disorder.  So, it is another one of those things that gets
poo-pooed by a lot of doctors.

The only doctor that didn't question this was my gastroenterologist,
who understood weird stomach disorders and their relationship to other
autoimmune disorders better than anyone, telling me things I wish I'd
known years ago about the pernicious.

Check the internet on autoimmune disorders.  That's where I found
information, years after my diagnosis about the likelihood of having
more than one autoimmune disorder, and what the most common are.  It
really opened my eyes.

Good luck to you.

s



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