Don't know the answer, but wanted to say congrats!!

DeeTee

The way my RD explained it to me, you could carry the marker all your life,
and never develop the illness. It's a total crapshoot.

Neither my mother nor Father have RA, but my father's father had an
aggressive case, like I do. None on my mother's side.

My father has 7 siblings. One of them has RA. The rest have a variety of
other arthritic conditions.

Sorry if this doesn't help much.:)

Kelly C.

Saffron. What a beautiful name. Reminds me of Johnie's grandson,
Acacia. Congratulations!

As for heredity. My family participated in a study (probably still
going on) through the Long Island Jewish Hospital (I may have that
name slightly wrong). The theory behind the study is that autoimmune
diseases run in families and may be expressed in different ways. For
example, there are 4 siblings in my family. My sister has MS, i have
RA, my brothers were supposedly  "normal." (ha!) so we all had to send
in blood samples and our medical histories were taken at length over
the phone. turns out my younger brother has psoriasis, which i never
knew about, and my older brother's long time kindey disease is also
considered autoimmune. so we ALL have some form of an autoimmune
disease, which was passed down (most likely) on our mother's side. Our
mother had polymyalgia rheumatica. Her mother, my grandmother, had
something crippling--probably RA. The upshot of all this is that,
theoretically speaking, the gene for autoimmune diseases runs in
families, but something triggers its expression (they don't know what
yet) and it may show up as a different disease in different
individuals.
and since this is all theoretical, it might all be disproven. but my
family is quite the autoimmune trainwreck. (might be genes or might be
from growing up in new jersey. . . )

the GOOD news is, that if little saffron develops anything at all,
research into these diseases is happening at such a rapid rate that
chances are he can be cured or the disease halted before any damage
occurs. i wish him a long a very healthy life.

diane

Welcome to the world, Saffron.

(This boy needs a nickname - soon)

To the best of my knowledge, every descendent of my paternal great
grandparents has autoimmune problems of some sort.

They have also all, for the most part lived long, happy, useful and
productive lives.

I'm posting some pictures later this weekend.  I'll include a before and
after picture of my paternal great grandmother.  She was in a lot of pain in
her later years.  Her grandchildren thought she was just bad tempered, but
grew up to understand more than they wanted to.  Her great grandchildren are
grateful for medical advances.

Jo