blood test results

yoshimi

Good afternoon,

I had an appt yesterday at the rheumy dept. I am in remission although controlled by my medications. They don't want me to reduce my meds at all even to see if I'm okay on less, he said it's because I'm young( 28 ) and have no long term joint damage and they want to keep it that way. Anyway, he said that my last blood test ( August ) had low white blood cell count and also mentioned about ana althougth I can't remember whether he said it was high or low. He said that he wants me to do another test asap, i'm suprised they didn't let me know if there was something wrong with my tests - what would a low white blood count mean?

Thank you,

Sarah

frogmorton

Hi Sarah
I thought high white blood cells meant that the body was fighting infection/inflamation maybe in our case?
Hopefully someone might be able to explain it all better
Take care
Toni x

joyful164

I wouldn't worry too much at the moment. Your consultant has his reasons and at least he is on the job.
It will all be clear soon. Perhaps the Helpline team could help you here.
joy

scattered

Low white cells can mean you meds are depressing your immune system too much and are compromising your ability to fight infection.

Try not to worry too much. I'm sure if he was concerned he'd have said something.

Congrats on your remission! I hope it is sustainable.

c4thyg

Some drugs can decrease your WBC count. Many treatments for inflammatory arthritis are immunosuppressants and will cause your WBC count to drop. I'm on enbrel and my counts are very low.

Your ANA is one of the indicators of lupus. My last test was slightly positive so I'll have another one done for my next appointment. There are however other things that can give a transient positive test. I don't think Drs worry about it unless you have 2 consecutive positive tests.

Hope this clears some things up for you.

livinglegend

Low white blood cell count is a normal effect of RA and meds combined.

RA is where the white cells in the joints think that other white blood cells are attacking the joint and they start attacking each other. With the white cells all rushing to join the fight against a 'pseudo-infection' in the joint, your joint swells and gets painful and your white blood cell count will fall elsewhere in the body.

So when you have a blood test taken from your arm you will get a low white cell count as many of your white cells are in the affected joint. The theory of using immunosuppressants is that it stops you having so many white cells and then you have less to go to the joints and cause swelling and pain. As you constantly produce white cells then the level of your white cells versus the level of RA is controlled by your meds. A balance is required.

If the dosage of meds is too high, then you will have a white cell count which is too low. Then while there are less to attack the joint, you become extra vulnerable to infections for which you need a certain amount of white cells to overcome. A very low white blood cell count may also indicate the presence of a serious bacterial, viral, or fungal infection that attacks the immune system.

Joseph 8)

yoshimi

thank you for all your replys. I shall get my bloods test done in the morning, i've just moved house and my new doctor's only does blood on a Friday, the next appt being on the 30th! I will have to go to the hospotal which is a shame as they used to make such a mess of it, passing me around till someone could find a vein!

It was really interesting to read about the white blood cells, thank you,

Sarah