Blood test results

[oscarandchloe]

Just had my yearly check up with full blood tests. I can access the results but will also be seeing my GP face to face (!) next week as this is part of the check up. Can you tell me what these two results mean, please? Serum Creactive protein level 7.8mg/L (normal below 5) and Mean corpus haemoglobin 32.1 (27.0-32.0) normal range. Both are flagged as abnormal. The rest of test are all flagged as normal. If it has any bearing on this, I'm on 4mg Pred and reducing to 3 1/2 at the moment, have no GCA or PMR symptoms , take no other drugs and have very little problem tapering on Dead Slow method. Thanks in advance, your advice has kept me going for 4 years .

[PMRpro Ambassador]

The CRP (c-reactive protein) is a measure of inflammation and that it is slightly up might suggest your pred dose is marginally too low and the inflammation is building up slowly. Or you might have a cold or something else. Once a year isn't really enough - it might be normal for you. It should be checked in a week or two to see if there is a rising trend of it is back to normal.

Haemoglobin is the substance in your blood that carries oxygen around the body. The measure you quote, MCH, mean corpuscular haemoglobon, is a calculation of the average amount of haemoglobin contained in each of a person's red blood cells. It is flagged as abnormal because it is 0.1 outside the range and the computer recognises only that is isn't in range. A human looking at it will say it is normal.

[oscarandchloe in reply to PMRpro]

Thanks for the information. Didn't think it was anything drastic but wanted to be clued up for the rare face to face meeting. I'll ask to have another CRP done but I really am well at the moment with no symptoms or signs of PMR. Had been on a longish walk 2 days before test and was a bit stiff from that which was, I suppose, a form of inflammation.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to oscarandchloe]

Yes, exercise CAN raise CRP so a small rise in us isn't the end of the world, it it if it keeps going that might be a problem.