Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Finally, I got to see the doctor. The diagnosis? "Not sure."
Who's surprised?
Here's the gist of it, though: First, Vitamin D deficient. WHAT? How could that be? I eat plenty of red meat. I eat plenty of vegetables. I spend time in the sun. The normal range is 30-100, she said she likes patients to be in the 50 range. My test was 18.4. This just seems completely implausable to me. But she prescribed Vit D for me, and I'll dutifully take it.
She let me have copies of the test results, which is good and bad, because you know I'll be Googling everything there is to see about it all. For example, my platelets are high--just outside of normal range, no mention from her about what that means, though. And Googling is a bad idea here, it's all over the map--naturally cancer casually mentioned multiple times. Something called 'Mono Auto' is also high--which apparently is actually testing for mononeucleosis? This reading can also be high with Lupus and lymphoma. Sweet.
Two liver panels (ALT and AST) are both low--again, just outside of the normal range. Google only mentions high readings related to hepatitis and such. Aparently it's AOK to have low liver panels...
On a positive note, my cholesterols were all good. On the higher end of good, but good.
So the big one that came back with questions was the auto-immune panels. My RF came back normal, which is a little disappointing, I guess, because if it'd been high, I'd have an easy diagnosis of Rheumatoid arthritis. What's called an ANA came back high, though. Normal range is 0.0-0.90, mine was 1.70. They broke it down further and found the SSA/RO was high. Normal range again 0.0-0.90, mine was 1.04. So WTF does that mean? Well, she mentioned the most common dx for this would be something called Sjögren’s syndrome. One of the symptoms of SS is joint pain, but it also causes dry eyes and mouth?? I don't have either of those. But every search of either Sjögren’s syndrome or SSA/RO also mentions Lupus (called SLE) and Rheumatoid arthritis, and some nicely vague thing called "Mixed Connective Tissue Disease". The higher platelets searches also turned up mentions of SLE and RA, AND the Mixed thing. She wants me to see a rheumatologist. So now I get to go through it all over again with a different doctor.
Who's surprised?
Here's the gist of it, though: First, Vitamin D deficient. WHAT? How could that be? I eat plenty of red meat. I eat plenty of vegetables. I spend time in the sun. The normal range is 30-100, she said she likes patients to be in the 50 range. My test was 18.4. This just seems completely implausable to me. But she prescribed Vit D for me, and I'll dutifully take it.
She let me have copies of the test results, which is good and bad, because you know I'll be Googling everything there is to see about it all. For example, my platelets are high--just outside of normal range, no mention from her about what that means, though. And Googling is a bad idea here, it's all over the map--naturally cancer casually mentioned multiple times. Something called 'Mono Auto' is also high--which apparently is actually testing for mononeucleosis? This reading can also be high with Lupus and lymphoma. Sweet.
Two liver panels (ALT and AST) are both low--again, just outside of the normal range. Google only mentions high readings related to hepatitis and such. Aparently it's AOK to have low liver panels...
On a positive note, my cholesterols were all good. On the higher end of good, but good.
So the big one that came back with questions was the auto-immune panels. My RF came back normal, which is a little disappointing, I guess, because if it'd been high, I'd have an easy diagnosis of Rheumatoid arthritis. What's called an ANA came back high, though. Normal range is 0.0-0.90, mine was 1.70. They broke it down further and found the SSA/RO was high. Normal range again 0.0-0.90, mine was 1.04. So WTF does that mean? Well, she mentioned the most common dx for this would be something called Sjögren’s syndrome. One of the symptoms of SS is joint pain, but it also causes dry eyes and mouth?? I don't have either of those. But every search of either Sjögren’s syndrome or SSA/RO also mentions Lupus (called SLE) and Rheumatoid arthritis, and some nicely vague thing called "Mixed Connective Tissue Disease". The higher platelets searches also turned up mentions of SLE and RA, AND the Mixed thing. She wants me to see a rheumatologist. So now I get to go through it all over again with a different doctor.
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