Anemia.....just Happend Upon Some Blood Test Results

[wolfie]

I was looking for my son's birth certificate so he would go to baseball tryouts and happened upon my labwork from 10/2005, before I found out about my gluten intolerance/Celiac. My RBC (red blood cell) count was marked low at 4.14 (normal range is 4.2 - 6.10). My dr never said anything about this being a problem and said all results were fine. I have been overly tired lately and have been having issues with my period and cycles being off. Thyroid checked out in the normal range, but the TSH level for me is low. Anyway, just wondered if the RBC level is low enough to warrant further checking out. All the other levels are marked normal except for MCH, which is marked high at 33.5 (normal range is 27 - 31).

Thanks for reading and for helping if you can.

[trents]

Those lab values are very close to normal range. No physician is going to think twice about those numbers. You need to get a CBC done now that you are gluten free so you have something to compare those numbers with.

[trents]

Those lab values are very close to normal range. No physician is going to think twice about those numbers. You need to get a CBC done now that you are gluten free so you have something to compare those numbers with.

It's interesting that your MCH (mean corpuscular hemoglobin) is high when your RBC is low. Looks like an inverse relationship. Our daughter has a bone marrow anomaly and with her there seems to be an inverse relationship between her RBC (which has tended to be low) and her MCV (mean courpuscular volume) which is always high. It's like the marrow is trying to compensate for the lack of of red blood cells in sheer numbers by making them larger.

[elisabet]

In order to consider anemia ,you should measure both hb and ferritin.

elisabet

[Robix]

Have become a bit of an unwilling expert on anemia. Anemia simply indicates that your red blood cell count is low due to a deficiency which can be related to many things. Most people immediately think that anemia means iron deficiency, when in fact, you can be suffering from another serious deficiency.

In my case it was megaloblastic anemia. It took Drs 6 weeks to come to a proper diagnosis as my ferratin levels were completely normal. They just don't look at vitamin B stores unless you ask them. And if you have a malabsorption problem due to celiac disease, you may not be absorbing the B vitamin range. Of course this is one possibility amongst others - but worth going back to the doctor and having new bloodwork done.

Unfortunately when B-deficiency exists due to malabsorption, ingesting vitamins doesn't work and intramuscular injections are required.

I hope this isn't what it is in your case, but feeling the exhaustion that comes with anemia just sucks, and it doesn't self-correct, it just gets worse. Worth bugging your doctor with a few questions at least to see if they checked your Bs.

Wishing you health and happiness -