blood test for MS? to rule it out?

[Bort]

Originally Posted by Erin524

I bet they were talking about the IgG test for NMO (Devic's). I think it's thought that Devic's might be related to MS in some way, and possibly the poster at that thread/forum got confused between the two.

There's no real consensus, the idea of Devic's as a separate disease is still pretty new. It's hard to do any research on as it's so rare. I am one of the handful of sufferers in my country (dad always told me I was special ). Multiple doctors still refer to me as having MS - and I do too sometimes when trying to explain it to laypeople, it's just easier. The IgG test is positive in about 70% of Devic's cases so it's by no means a miracle diagnostic tool - mine was negative for example. MRI still remains the test with the highest specificity for diagnosing any demyelinating condition.

[Mariel]

I never heard of Devic's. It seems there are diagnoses out there that most of us never heard of. Remember when they predicted computers would be automatically able to diagnose diseases...they predicted that decades ago, and this goal was never reached.

[Snoopy]

Bort:
There's no real consensus, the idea of Devic's as a separate disease is still pretty new. It's hard to do any research on as it's so rare. I am one of the handful of sufferers in my country (dad always told me I was special ). Multiple doctors still refer to me as having MS - and I do too sometimes when trying to explain it to laypeople, it's just easier. The IgG test is positive in about 70% of Devic's cases so it's by no means a miracle diagnostic tool - mine was negative for example.

For those who have not heard of Devics: The current terminology for this disease is Neuromyelitis-optica (NMO). NMO (Devics) was once considered a variant of MS but it is now a disease separate of MS. It is important to get the correct diagnosis as treatment for NMO is different from treatment for MS.

The blood test for NMO is sent to the MayoClinic, they are the ones who developed the IgG test.

http://myelitis.org/symptoms-conditi...elitis-optica/

http://www.mayoclinic.org/neuromyelitis-optica/