Worried about anemia diagnosis

Post Reply New Topic

On Sunday 6/8, I threw up McDonald's food I had eaten and my face went red. On the next day, my face was still red, so I made an appointment with my PCP for the next day Tuesday 6/10. She suspected food poisoning and said the redness was little blood vessels popping from the pressure of my vomiting. She drew blood and ran some tests, including a Complete Blood Count, which came to:

This meant a diagnosis of mild anemia, but what was the cause of it? Anyway, they called and told me I was "a little anemic" that Thursday 6/12 and the next day I went in for more lab work and was given 3 stool sample collectors to check for blood in my stool. They also took my blood, which from the report appears to be to determine my blood's iron levels, my TIBC, and something else I can't read. Anyway, I turned in the samples on Tuesday 6/17 and am waiting to hear back.

Doing my research, I find that anemia is not always because of iron deficiency, so I will not take any supplements until I talk to my PCP. I find that I have normocytic, normochromic anemia (because my MCV and MCH are normal but my RBC is low), but I am close to having macrocytic, hyperchromic anemia (because the MCV and MCH were so close to the upper ranges). Of course, I still don't know the cause.

The potential causes, though, are scary-looking for the normocytic, normochromic type:



http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio ... mic+anemia

Carcinomatosis sounds really scary, so I hope I can get a good answer soon. Then again, on my last endocrinologist visit, he did see some thyroid issues, so that could be the cause, a much less scarier-sounding one.

Sorry to hear that happened to you.

I was in grad school and fellow Chinese grad students got me drinking tea. And lots of it. When I went to donate blood as I had done in the past, they took a blood sample and dropped it in some blue fluid. It didn't sink to the bottom, which I was told it didn't have enough iron. She then went over various things that could cause it, and one of them was tea.

So it might be something you are eating or drinking.

They are testing my iron levels; because I don't know whether their too low or not, I'm going to hold off on any supplements until the lab results come back. I have a pretty iron-heavy diet, though, eating things like asparagus as well as Fruit Loops (in which one serving provides 25% of your daily recommended iron), often eating several consecutive bowls, so I guess I usually eat 3 servings or more.

I don't drink much tea, but thanks for your concern.

Calcium inhibits iron absorption, so it could be you get less iron from it than it says on the package.

Nice cat btw, in happy mode too.

Good thought. Of course, I'm going to wait for my doctor's advice before making any major dietary changes, but I do think you have a point there. I live by myself, and when I started living by myself, I figured that buying a gallon of milk would have been too much and that it would expire before I could finish it, so I bought it in half-gallons. The only problems was, I went through the half-gallons so fast I had to keep going back to the store, so I switched to buying gallons, which I buy once or twice a week, so pretty much the milk is all drunk up long before the expiration date.

Ugh, I've clogged up the toilet 3 times in the past week, despite trying to keep up with my water and fiber intake.

At times, my abdomen hurts or I feel that strange ticklish feeling like I'm about to throw up. I had an anger outburst on Friday, followed by a migraine with dizziness, obsessive focus on a programming task, and a sense of meaninglessness coming on.

Just went to the doctor today about chills, fatigue, constipation, hard-to-pass stools, and stools clogging up the toilet. He says the fatigue is likely due to psychiatric factors and not to the anemia, which is still on the mild side.

Nevertheless, I am glad I did not start taking iron supplements before being instructed to by a doctor, because I do NOT have iron-deficiency anemia. Looking at the lab results, it appears instead that I have some form of anemia of chronic disease (due to the normal iron amount and iron-binding capacity, but also the abnormally high ferritin, though normal ferritin levels can also mean the same thing):

On the hemoccult tests, the first of the three came back positive for blood in my stool so I gotta see a gastroenterologist to see if there is a problem with my digestive system, like slow bleeding might be the problem. Of course, that one positive could be a false positive; on the other hand, one or both of the negatives might be false negatives. The evidence, my doctor says, however, shows that we need to investigate that route.

Nevertheless, looking at anemia of chronic disease, my results seem to be consistent with that and it appears that my anemia has been developing for a while, when I look at the complete blood counts that were done when I was hospitalized.

I took some stool softener and Miralax, and had better stool, but it still clogged the toilet.

Now it seems worse than ever, because the water won't drain at all.

I just took a whole bunch of Benadryl. Night night.

A thought on being transgender and my ferritin levels (above):

The lab results came back with a density of 182 ng/mL of ferritin in my blood, which is high for a female reference range, but does not appear to be so for a male reference range.

But here's the thing, sure males are larger than females and stuff, but we're talking density here, not outright mass.

So for a trans woman who went through a male puberty and is probably XY in terms of chromosomes and is now on estrogen (and has been for a while), what should my density's reference range be? Are hormones important to determining the density of ferritin in one's blood?

This kind of topic is one that has not been researched very well, I know.