protein and albumin low

[Peckaroo]

On 8/24/2012 at 11:13 AM, kittty said:

All went fine with the doctor. She ordered blood testing (which I talked about in another thread), and she seemed legitimately interested in hearing about my gluten free journey, and was happy that I felt better.

 

They also have a neat new system at her office where you can logon to a website and see information from past medical appointments and blood work. I'd never seen the actual results of blood work before, but always had a call from the nurse who said everything looked okay without going into detail. Well, I noticed that some of my levels were low (only just below the normal range) on some of tests that were done a few years ago.

 

For example, my A/G ratio was low. So I googled A/G ratio to find out what that meant, and came across this from the first result:

 

Low total protein levels can suggest a liver disorder, a kidney disorder, or a disorder in which protein is not digested or absorbed properly. Low levels may be seen in severe malnutrition and with conditions that cause malabsorption, such as Celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

 

 

It was right there in front of my face the whole time. Sigh...

My protein and albumin are low. Can eating protein muffins, etc raise them

[kareng]

I broke this out into its own topic as it would be lost over on a 5 year old thread about doctors.  That is why it has the odd quoted part that isn't on this thread.

[kareng]

I don't know .  I think it would be important to know why those numbers are low.  Might make a difference if they are just a little low or very low.  What did the doctor suggest you do next?

 

[trents]

I am a celiac who has experienced low total protein and albumin numbers for many years. One or the other might be barely into the normal range but not both at the same time. However, finally within the last year for the first time in probably 20 years they were both into the normal range but just barely. My understanding is that this phenomenon is thought to be caused by the celiac's "leaky gut" so that serum protein is being lost into the intestinal cavity ("lumen") and passes out of the body with our stools. 

When my most recent blood work showed that both total protein and albumin were into the normal range I took that as a sign that there had been more thorough healing in my gut over a long time.

My diet has always been fairly high in protein and at different times I have used protein supplements to try to boost total protein and albumin levels but it did not seem to make any difference. I think there is some kind of osmosis factor at work to maintain these low levels of serum protein and albumin.

Doctors don't get excited when serum albumin and protein levels are a little out of range. But when they fall below a certain point they do get concerned because this can be associated with congestive heart failure.