New to the group

[mamajama]

I was diagnosed with CLL in October 2015.  In March of this year I saw my gp....took blood work.....my WBC was down by 4 and one other was down slightly...would this be due to me getting tests at two different labs....I did change my eating habits and have lost 16 lbs since October.  My counts are very low thank goodness.

[AussieNeil Partner Founder Admin]

Welcome mamajama,

Without knowing your absolute count values, it's hard to know the relative influence of many factors that can influence your WBC count.  First read this pinned post:

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

Even if you measure the lymphocyte count to avoid the influence of other non-lymphocyte white blood cells, the following factors influence your result:

- Time of day the blood sample was taken

- Reproducibility of the test instrument; around +/-0.5

- Natural variation in lymphocyte count over time

- Variation with infections

- Variation between laboratories

- If the ALC is high enough, a significant number of CLL cells can be miscounted as neutrophils, so a manual count is required for better accuracy

Well done on the weight loss; there's much we can do to improve our health even while living with an incurable chronic cancer!

Neil

[tclementi]

Hi mamajama, Welcome! This group will be of great support to you, the people here are very knowledgable. PatientPower.info is also a great resource for more info. That's awesome that your counts are low and you've changed your eating habits/lost weight. We can all benefit from that  

[mamajama in reply to tclementi]

The site has helped me so much in understanding what all this is about.   Helped me  emencely.  Thanks from the bottom of my heart...

[tclementi in reply to mamajama]

We are so glad! Please let me know if I can be of any further help/support! -Theresa