[thehappyhippo]

Hello my daughter has been having health issues for the last 3 months and we had some blood work done yesterday. She has been having chronic infections, joint and leg pain, fevers, abdominal pain, etc. She gets better for awhile and then gets sick again. She complains about not feeling well almost every day but when we ask what doesn't feel good she just says her whole body. She specifically will name her tummy and legs though. She had 3 abnormal ranges on her blood work but I can't get anyone to call me back from the docs office yet and it's driving me crazy. Anyone know how to interpret her lab work?

Here are her results. She is 4:

I am listing the abnormal results if you want the normal ones just let me know:

MCH 29.3H ----- Reference is 24-28pg
MPV 7.0L ------ Reference is 7.4 - 10.4 u3

From her differential count

% neutrophils 28L ---- Reference is 29-57%

 

[thehappyhippo]

No one can help??

 

[noahs.mom06]

MCH stands for Mean corpuscular hemoglobin
MPV I can't find what it stands for, but it has to do with platelets from what I can tell.
Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell.
To me, none of those values are THAT off. Try to reassure yourself that if there was something wrong, you would know, because they would be calling you. I hope everything is ok!

 

[thehappyhippo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by noahs.mom06 MCH stands for Mean corpuscular hemoglobin MPV I can't find what it stands for, but it has to do with platelets from what I can tell. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell. To me, none of those values are THAT off. Try to reassure yourself that if there was something wrong, you would know, because they would be calling you. I hope everything is ok!

Thanks. I was able to locate what they stood for but not what it meant for those specific numbers to be out of whack. They didn't call me back today because her doctor isn't in the office and no one was willing to interpret the results for me until her doctor is back in the office, tomorrow.

The numbers don't seem that off until you consider that the range for MCH is only 4 which put her elevated by almost 33% above the top range.

 

[thehappyhippo]

updating to add that according to this link it is probably some type of anemia.

http://www.articles.complexchild.com/Aug2008/00062.html

 

[Ackray]

Has her doctor gotten back to you yet?

 

[thehappyhippo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ackray Has her doctor gotten back to you yet?

No, and it is making me very angry.

I called the office this morning when they opened and told the receptionist I wanted a call from the doctor. Last night one of the other doctors in the practice left a message on my phone when I was out saying that her "results were normal but that I might want to ask our Dr. about a referral to a pediatrician."

What is that supposed to mean? Plus, her results aren't NORMAL. Especially considering her symptoms. Plus, they didn't know I had a copy of the lab. So then this morning when I called the office the receptionist answered and I said I wanted the Dr. to call me directly. The receptionist said there was a note in my daughters file from Dr. Fox saying that they want me to monitor my daughter for awhile taking note of her symptoms and time of day, activity preceeding her symptoms, etc before giving her a referral. But all they would say about the results of her blood test was that it looked "okay".

I told the receptionist that I still wanted a call back from the doctor and that I was concerned about one of her levels being more than 30% elevated and her possibly having anemia. I'm told I'll get a call so I guess we'll go from there.

I've been annoyed in general with this practice because we've been telling them for the last 3 months that my daughter has joint/muscle pain and they just keep telling us it's growing pains and not to worry about it.

 

[kittynurse]

I agree with the others that the values you've posted here aren't "off" enough to be considered abnormal. Although, coupled with her ongoing symptoms, they do become more significant. I think the more telling results would be what the trend is. So, if you took the blood again in a week, 2 weeks, whatever, do the values stay the same, go up, go down? That would give a more accurate picture of what is going on and I believe that is probably why the doctor said that the results are normal but they want to refer you to a pediatrician. They are actually saying that they believe you that something is going on and want to follow up on it, even though her bloodwork doesn't indicate a problem.

Also, I think you are misinterpreting the MCH value. The range just means that in normal people, the level of the MCH has been found to be between those two numbers. The significance of the increase over the normal range is related to the value of the normal not the value of the range. Does that make sense? An analogy might be - if the normal height range in women is 5'4" to 5'8" (total guess, I don't know the real number), a person is not 25% taller than average if they are 5'9".

I didn't read the whole article that you linked to, but I'm not seeing where it says that she is anemic based on these numbers. Her hemoglobin is actually higher than normal.

If you feel comfortable posting them, it might be helpful to know the rest of the results from her bloodwork. Maybe some other folks with more knowledge might come along and be able to give a better interpretation.

As an aside, I wanted to encourage you keep pursuing this because there is clearly something going on with your DD. It may be in your best interest to get the referral to the ped. Especially since they've been blowing you off for 3 months. We have been on a long journey for diagnosis for our DS and I know how frustrating it can be.

Martha

 

[Ackray]

I agree with everything kittynurse said.

I hope you can figure out what is wrong with your dd. There is obviously something wrong based on her symptoms, but her labs are pretty normal.

 

[sbgrace]

I agree the labs don't look alarming to me. But her symptoms are and it doesn't sound like you are being taken seriously. In my experience that means you have a bad doctor. I'd get another.