Genetic link

None of my family members had any sort of auto-immune disease anywhere along the line. I'm the first one. They usually say that if your mother had some sort of auto-immune disease that you are more likely to have a problem. It's a different story for my kids. My son was just diagnoised with type 1 diabetes (auto-immune), one daugher had Chron's, One daughter has Cholitis. I'm just waiting to see what my youngest daughter is going to ger.

recently Dx myself, i just found out that RA apparently runs on my dad's side of the family. i'm hearing that my dad's cousin and her daughter have lupus induced RA and RA.  i have two cousins with RA: one has lupus induced RA, one has RA, and then another cousin (sister to the RA one) that has fibromyalgia (is that auto immune?).  Far as i know their mother (deceased) didn't have any problems other than morbid obesity and diabetes.   my mother is a healthy 67 yrs old with no auto immune diseases on her side of the family.   all of us (first) cousins with active RA/lupus are about 10 yrs in age difference.  3 of us in our early 40's, 1 in early 50's but i heard Dx in her 40's.  so far no one else has surfaced with it. 

My Mother's brother has RA and to the best of my knowledge I am the only other one in the family with it.  He has three daughters, one within 4 years of age of me and she has shown no signs of the disease.  My Mother also has a sister that has Lupus and no one else in the family has Lupus.  My uncle that has RA has also had cancer of the lymph nodes at least twice.  I have two biological children that I pray never have to experience any of the symptoms and pain that I deal with daily.  My daughter seems pretty empathetic and trys to understand what I am going through.  My son is in his own little world and I think he feels I should just pull myself up by the bootstraps and get over it>>>  We all know that is easier said than done.

Cindy

My mother was diagnosed about 6 months before I was last year.  She has been having many more problems with severity/progression of the disease than I have shown so far.  We are almost on the same treatment but she goes to a different Rheumy than I do.  Since she just went through the screening process I was a lot more aware of what to expect when I started developing symptoms and my family doctor was much quicker on getting me into see a Rheumatologist.  No one else in my family (that I know of) has or had RA.  I just find it crazy to think that we both developed symptoms in the same year but we live on opposite sides of the state  in very different environments.       

Had to chuckle when you asked if you were "just being a worry wart".  I just shouted out in my head, .....your a MOM!!  Of course you're a worry wart!  Unfortunately it just goes with the job description.  *sigh*

The short answer is yes, there is a genetic component to this disease.  My Gma has RA and her daughter, my mom, actually passed due to complications of an entirely different autoimmune disease.  Still, it was an autoimmune disease none the less. 

All that said, doesn't mean your girls will necessarily have similar health issues.  Doesn't mean they won't either, but it isn't like a definite thing. I'm guessing the docs were dismissive of the earlier detected RF factor because it isn't a definitive indicator.  Some people have it and never develop the disease, others can have full blown crazy RA and no RF factor. If the RF factor was found as an "incidental" and had no bearing on what they were looking for at that particular time, this is probably why it wasn't investigated further.

All the same, as you are a mom I know for a fact you are no fool!  If your daughters are experiencing other issues that start sounding eerily familiar, it would be natural to want to investigate further.  In absence of that, as your girls are young and have many more years of living ahead of them, it is always a good idea to pace yourself on the worry induced heart attacks.  (Like we can help it, right?)

Good luck and keep us posted, on them and you!