Hi! I am 57 f and have an extremely dry mouth which has led to major dental issues. My dentist won't do another implant until I get some sort of treatment for it. Background is below or you can skip to my question.
Background: I had radioactive iodine years ago for thyroid cancer. It is very possible that this was responsible for all the damage to my salivary glands (parotid glands are completely dead, but I just had my submandibular glands opened up and have stents so there is a little life in them). They did a lip biopsy during my surgery because the ENT doing the salivary gland procedure thought there was more going on than radiation damage. I do have a positive (1:320) ANA but I am negative for sjogrens antibodies. I have assorted other autoimmune associated things, but no specific antibodies, so it is considered undifferentiated connective tissue disease. I am a little upset with a rheumatologist I saw a while back who dismissed Sjogrens on basis of no antibodies. It didn't occur to me that it was still a possibility, but the ENT explained that the antibodies aren't always present in blood samples and even when they are, they don't necessarily correlate with disease activity.
Question: My lip biopsy was a week ago Friday, but the biopsy is still out. This seems like a long time. Is this unusual? I had it done at a medical school so I assume the pathology is on-site. I have gotten other biopsies back within 2-3 days so I am starting to worry it may have been lost.