Let's compare blood tests

[faith]

I'm just perusing my son's medical file just getting things in order and trying to connect some dots. I had a habit of alway asking if he could have blood tests done every once in a while, cause he was always low weight and not a good eater. So, one of them I'm looking at shows his white blood count in the low range. maybe not terribly so, but I'm wondering if it means anything at all? I have one lab report here when he was 6yrs old and the WBC is 4.8.....it lists the reference range as 5.0 - 16.0.

and then lower down there is something called Neutrophils, absolute .. its 1474 (L) and the ref range is 1500-8500. (btw, our doctor dic not indicate to us that this meant anything, the work up was considered all normal)

 

some things I looked up:

 

"A low white blood cell count can be the result of infection, make an individual more susceptible to outside infections or allow multilication of organisims within the body which would normally be kept in check by a healthy immune system.

 

and Neutrophils : "are the most abudnant of hte white blood cells. they squeeze thru the capillary walls and into infected tussue where they kill the invaders such as bacteria and then engulf the remnants by phagocytosis. . This is a never ending task; even in healthy people, throat, nasal passages, and colon harbor vast numbers of bacteria. Moste of these are commensals, and do us no harm - but that is because neutrophils kee them in check, however heavey doses of radition, chemotherapy, and many other forms of steress can reduce thenumbers of neutrophils. If that happens, formely harmless bacteria begin to proliferate, and the resulting opportunistic infection can be life threatening."

 

probably no big deal, but with our kids, who knows, this was just a regular routine blood test so nothing in particular was being looked for.

 

Could anyone here who may have some copies of their kids' blood tests on hand see if they have anything similar? ...... or anything you think might be interesting. I'm just wondering since white blood cells do have something to do with infection, maybe being slightly low means there was a low grade infection hanging around? What do you think? or am I just makin trouble?.....

 

Faith

[Worried_Dad]

Hmmm....

 

We don't have copies of the actual test, but when our PANDAS son was 6, he developed a scary "mystery illness." He had a fever, and then suddenly had trouble walking - couldn't put any weight on his legs. We had to carry him around the house for several days. We were scared to death, he'd never had a serious illness before.

 

The local doc ran some blood tests and called to tell us that his white cell count was dangerously low, way below normal. She was very concerned. Mentioned possibilities like leukemia. We were pretty freaked out. She wanted to repeat the blood work to make sure it wasn't a lab error.

 

They drew more blood. Before the results came back, our son started improving and began to walk on his own again. When we went back to the doc, she informed us - with relief - that his white cell count was still below normal but was coming back up. The docs never figured out what it was, just told us he must have contracted some unusual viral or bacterial infection.

 

Dr. K mentioned to us that he believes most kids diagnosed with PANDAS after age 10 (our son was 11 when diagnosed) had an earlier bout that went undetected. My wife and I have begun to wonder if this "mystery illness" at age 6 was actually the start of this PANDAS nightmare and we didn't even realize it.

 

Guess we'll never know for sure....

[ShannonOtown]

Faith,

I'm so glad you brought this topic up. I did a search on this forum regarding this subject, but nothing came up.

 

My sons CBC came back 5 weeks ago is his neutrophils were extremely low, which flagged my Neuro-physch doctor and she sent us to the immunologist. Our doctor said low white bloods cell count was something she saw often in Pandas. His neutrophil count was 800 and normal is 1500-8000. We are currently doing 3 weeks of CBCs (pull blood every monday) to see if there is a trend. We have to see if this was just a one time event, or if this is a normal/average count. She is also doing more extensive immune work up to explore his overall immune system. We have a follow-up appt Dec 1st to pull all the results together and see if there is some type of disorder related to this...

 

She was extremely concerned b/c this is what fights infection and with such a low count, my son (11 yo) could get extremely sick. You need to look out for history of mouth sores, extreme infections/hospital stay due to sickness, pneumonia, skin infections, extreme high fevers. My son does not have a history of any extreme sickness, so were okay for now. But I would definitely work with an immunologist if you show a history of low neutrophils.

 

My main concern is she insisted b/c my sons immune system is compromised at this time, that he get both flu shots. If he gets ill, his system will not be able to fight the infection. My neuro-pych doctor said to go with her recommendation, but I'm holding off for now.

 

I never had my sons tested until this year, so I have no history to reference... I wish I had...

 

There are several disorders associated with low neutrophils. (Neutropenia)

 

I'll keep you posted on the findings come December.... it's a long wait for results.

 

Shannon

[sf_mom]

Hmmmmmm: Faith I just got back some of our younger son's results from Wednesday and his white blood cell count is also down...... 4.8 exactly the same as your sons. His red blood was also low at 32 and 33 being low range. We are still awaiting results for CaM Kinase and will update when I have them.

 

-Wendy

[mama2alex]

I just looked at my son's labs from a month ago. His neutrophil was 39; normal range of 49 - 74. His white blood count was 5.8; normal range 4.5 - 13.5.

[ShannonOtown]

I forgot to add this small piece of info my immun doc explained. There are different types of white blood cells, so your over WBC will include the total together. The Neutrophils are a certain type of WBC. They are the 'front line' defenders and first to fight the infection when it enters the body. That's why most patients with low neutrophils will have mouth, lip, gum sores b/c this is where you would find infections entering the body first, as well as skin infections.