Hello everyone, It's actually been awhile since I have posted here, but I have received SO MUCH great advice in the past. You guys are truly the best!
Recently my 20 month old daughters pediatrician wanted to test her CBC, metabolic, and thyroid levels because she is on the small side. She is in the 4% for her weight and 25% for her height. Plus, I have hashimoto's and she wanted to make sure her thyroid was doing ok.
I actually didn't think there would be anything wrong because we went through the same thing with my now 5 year old daughter when she was younger.
Well, they called me 2 days after receiving the results and they said her Absolute Neutrophils were low. Her level was 1140 and normal is between 1500-8500. I guess she is mildly low. But my pediatrician is now sending us to a pediatric GI Dr. to make sure she doesn't have celiac disease. And she is also sending us to a pediatric dietician because she wants to make sure we are feeding her enough calories.
I called my LLMD and they said Absolute Neutrophils can be low with Lyme patients but it can always indicate another issue. I should also mention she just recently was tested for Lyme and Babesia and we have not got the results back yet.
Currently my 5 year old daughter and I have Lyme and Babesia, but we are doing very well with diet change, and herbal tinctures.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has low Absolute Neutrophils. Besides being on the small side and having low Absolute Neutrophils, she also gets very small bruises from time to time. I'm afraid that she has Lyme Disease as well because I also get these small bruises on my body when my babesia is flaring.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Posted by Rumigirl (Member # 15091) on :
I have quite a lot of previous posts on this issue, which you can search for.
Assuming that by 1140, your lab means 1.40 (it is reported sometimes with the decimal point transposed), that is VERY low, not just a little low!!
1.0 is considered getting into the critical range. And normal is usually considered starting at 1.8 (sorry, I wrote it wrong before).
The main causes of this are Ehrlichia/Anaplasma, Babesia, and Lyme. So, yes, it looks likely, sadly, that this is what is going on.
Many of the meds to treat the infections can also temporarily lower the WBC's and ANC (Absolute neutrophils), so they have to be closely monitored.
The danger in the ANC going lower than 1.0 is that the person is then very open to usually innocuous infections. But LLMD"s know that these numbers can go low and have to not totally lose
heart in treating the infections, so as to take care of the cause. It's a delicate balancing act.
There are a number of things to raise the ANC & WBC's while treating , which I and others went into in my previous posts.
You definitely need a top LLMD for this, and ideally a top pediatric LLMD (there is only one of those that I know of, on the
opposite coast from you). His office does respond, if you wanted to ask, not medical info per se, but if there is anyone on your coast for instance.
[ 06-17-2013, 11:49 PM: Message edited by: Rumigirl ]
Posted by Sammi (Member # 110) on :
Ehrlichiosis can cause low white blood cell counts in some people.