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I Have A Good List Of Labwork That I Need Help Deciphering, Anyone Willing To Help Me?

learning2cope

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learning2cope Apprentice
learning2cope
Posted

I hate to do this to you all but I'm confused as heck by my lab work. I have a copy of ALL of my labs since I started seeing my current GP and I went through them and googled all of them to see what they *could* mean. Here are the results of the abnormal ones…

The calcium oxalate I guess means I had moderate kidney stones.. He never told me that. That would have been nice to know!!

I screwed up the formatting when I copied it from my doctor's patient chart website and pasted it into ExceI, I have no idea what the real normal values are unfortunately. I think every single time I log into the website it notifies my doctor/nurse that I was there. I had already been there like 3 times or more in a week. LOL I really couldn't find any good info on the correct values for them so I left them blank OR messed up. I gave up trying to fix it.

The labs are sorted by Lab test then by date so you can see how the labs change over time. I did find a connection with a lot of them to celiac but I may be reaching. :P I am looking to see if I have a valid reason to go to my doctor and request the full celiac panel of blood work. What do you think? I don't know if anyone here is any kind of expert in lab results but I'm hoping to see if I have a case. I know that I was tested for "IGA" and "IGG" and "IGM" but that's all it says. They were within the normal range. That was just one year ago. I have no idea what they are, are they tests for Celiac??
 

Here is the link to my google docs file that has my labs: Open Original Shared Link

 

I did notate what I thought could be the answer to those lab results. I can't see how I am anemic (even in the slightest) I eat a lot of red meat (yeah yeah, I know, it's not healthy :P) I may not have the healthiest diet out there but I'm trying to change that. I really do think I have celiac and I would go get a biopsy done on my "psoriasis" that I really think is dermatitis herpetiformis (same exact symptoms of it!!) but I used steroid ointment lately so I have to wait 2 months I think to actually get biposied. So I'm opting for blood work but I need to know if I need to even worry about celiac. I know I have bloating and sometimes sharp pains in my gut not long after eating wheat products. Had some loose yellow stool lately as well. Just a general unwell feeling along with a fever I've had for over a year. It's been between 99.0 and 99.9 most of the time, comes on in the afternoon and goes away by morning after I've fallen asleep. *shrugs* My doctor isn't concerned with it but I am!! It's a change and I wish I knew what caused it!

 

Ok enough babbling, please, if you can, please help me decipher this code. :) I'd be eternally grateful!

 

Brittany

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shadowicewolf Proficient
shadowicewolf
Posted

I can't make heads or tails of that code. I tried :/

 

As for the anemia, if you are not absorbing vitamins properly that certainly can cause it.

 

I eat mainly red meat, so don't feel bad! Mind you i eat a lot of fruit (apples mainly), veggies, and meat.... and peanut butter :ph34r: as well soo. :P

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nvsmom Community Regular
nvsmom
Posted

I looked through the labs quickly and did not see any celiac blood tests. The IgA and IgG you mentioned have normal ranges that are the same as what is usually seen for the total serum IgA (or IgG) tests - which just tests to see if you have enough IgA or IgG to have an accurate celiac test. The most common celiac blood tests are:

 

  • ttg IgA and ttg IgG
  • EMA IgA
  • DGP IgA and DGP IgG
  • AGA IgA and AGA IgG (older and less frequently used tests)

If you are getting the blood tests done, make sure you continue eating gluten so they are accurate. If you suspect gluten is a problem for you, you should probably get tested soon so you don't damage yourself with gluten longer than needed.

 

...And I don't think meat is bad for you either, especially if it's high quality, organic, grass fed meat.... but I'm no expert.  ;)

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learning2cope Apprentice
learning2cope
  • Author
Posted

I looked through the labs quickly and did not see any celiac blood tests. The IgA and IgG you mentioned have normal ranges that are the same as what is usually seen for the total serum IgA (or IgG) tests - which just tests to see if you have enough IgA or IgG to have an accurate celiac test. The most common celiac blood tests are:

 

  • ttg IgA and ttg IgG
  • EMA IgA
  • DGP IgA and DGP IgG
  • AGA IgA and AGA IgG (older and less frequently used tests)

If you are getting the blood tests done, make sure you continue eating gluten so they are accurate. If you suspect gluten is a problem for you, you should probably get tested soon so you don't damage yourself with gluten longer than needed.

 

...And I don't think meat is bad for you either, especially if it's high quality, organic, grass fed meat.... but I'm no expert.   ;)

Ah, thank you. :) well most of the red meat I eat is in kosher beef hot dogs, but I doubt that they are free range, grass fed. And it doesn't say organic on the package. I'd love to be able to find and afford organic grass fed meat but we live in a smallish town, soon to be moving to a smaller town across the country. LOL Which stinks since I'm sure I'd get more nutrients from such meat and not possibly have hormone issues or at least hormone issues as bad as I do (PCOS).

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nvsmom Community Regular
nvsmom
Posted

Ah, thank you. :) well most of the red meat I eat is in kosher beef hot dogs, but I doubt that they are free range, grass fed. And it doesn't say organic on the package. I'd love to be able to find and afford organic grass fed meat but we live in a smallish town, soon to be moving to a smaller town across the country. LOL Which stinks since I'm sure I'd get more nutrients from such meat and not possibly have hormone issues or at least hormone issues as bad as I do (PCOS).

 If you are near farms, you might be able to find a local farmer to buy beef from. We have a farm in the family and do our own butchering, so I know exactly the diet my beef had and how lean my cuts of meat are. Because of our great meat supply, we eat a few days a week... and I've never had low B12 so maybe it has helped.  LOL

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learning2cope Apprentice
learning2cope
  • Author
Posted

I don't know of any farms around here. I do know there is a llama farm and a pig farm, though they are very small operations. Plus I am not sure the pig farm is even a meat producing farm. I'll try to look into local farms when we move. But would we have to butcher the cow ourselves if we bought meat from a local farmer? I don't even know if there are butchers in the city we are moving to, like stand-alone butcher shops... We just buy our meat from the grocery store pre-packaged like most (if not all) do around here. Our store has a tiny organic selection of fruits and veggies. There are large stores about a half hour away that are dedicated to wholesome foods (Whole Foods and a little shop called The Raisin Rack) but they are way out of our way to buy from.

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nvsmom Community Regular
nvsmom
Posted

No, you can always pay to have someone else butcher for you. We just do it ourselves because it's a cheaper and it's a fun social time with our family... well, the chatting is fun while we work.  LOL  ;)

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shadowicewolf Proficient
shadowicewolf
Posted

Another thought would be to find a family butcher and see if they do grass fed beef. A bit more expensive then the stuff at a regular store, however, i do not get belly aches after eating the beef i get at the butcher. That, to me, is more than worth it. There is also no extra water or anything in it.

 

Edit: apparently i missed your post. Oh well :)

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learning2cope Apprentice
learning2cope
  • Author
Posted

LOL "fun social time" hehe Yeah I can sorta see that.

 

I'm looking at the Mayo Clinic's Celiac Disease Diagnostic Testing Algorighm PDF chart Open Original Shared Link. I am a litle confused by it. It starts off here by saying Get thested for this (Testing for selective IgA deficiency/IGA/8157 Immunoglobulin A (IgA), Serum ) and it says if you have "normal IgA" look here, or not, What does NORMAL IgA mean? Is **that** the IgA I was tested for? And if so, what is their definition of a normal result? I'm just confused. My lab for regular IGA was "normal" by my lab's standards. So if that's the case, I should be tested for TTGA right? I just want to make sure I'm reading this right..

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nvsmom Community Regular
nvsmom
Posted

IgA is a type of immunoglobin that works in your digestive tract against infections. Here's a basic description: Open Original Shared Link

 

If IgA is low, then you won't show autoantibodies that use Iga in your blood work (ttg IgA or EMA IgA). If you have normal IgA, then it means you can have an ccurate ttg IgA, EMA IgA and DGP IgA blood test done. For example, I have a normal IgA, so it was able to show that I had abnormally high ttg IgA and a high EMA IgA titre.

 

I think (can't remember the exact stat) that IgA deficiencies are found in 5% of the celiac population (higher than average) so they test IgA serum to make sure tests are accurate.

 

Hope that made sense.  :)

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learning2cope Apprentice
learning2cope
  • Author
Posted

Yes it does, thank you. :) I think maybe at the time those tests were run the doc was looking for a reason for my recurrent toe infections. But I did find a reason for them even though it makes no sense to me. I have had at least one toe infection per month since before March of last year, same toe, except for this time which I have one now in my other big toe. It's caused somehow by the steroid ointment I use on my feet for my "psoriasis" (I believe now that it's DH). If I get the ointment on top of my toe around the nailbed I guarantee an infection there. I tested this just a few days ago, when I treated my feet with the ointment. I purposefully did not get the ointment near my nail bed on my right big toe (where all the infections have been over the past year) and DID get it all over my left big toe. NOW my left big toe is quite severely infected. I was up all night due to the pain. I did finally think of something that worked for the pain, I took a few solid minutes and poured peroxide on the toe where it's infected and in a few minutes the pain dramatically reduced! I'm now able to be near 100% pain free with tylenol! Here in a few minutes I'm going to do the peroxide treatment again since I did it around 7 or 7:30am today. I'll do it soon and then again before bed. I am also putting triple antibiotic ointment on it with a bandaid between peroxide treatments. I hope that'll knock the infection out. If not after a few days if it's still swollen and red and painful to gently press on, I'll make an appt with my podiatrist. Crazy, right? Steroid ointment is the cause somehow. *shakes head*

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