[Gracie92]

Thoughts about blood test results?

by Gracie92 on Sat Apr 16, 2016 8:31 pm

Hello,

Thanks in advance for any advice. Last August, during an ultrasound, a 1.6 centimeter lymph node was incidentally detected in my lower neck. The endocrinologist did a fine needle aspiration which showed reactive hyperplasia. Six months later the lymph node was still there and had not gone down at all so my general practice doctor sent me for another ultrasound which confirms the node was unchanged and did appear benign. I also have lots of little nodes all over.

To be extra cautious, she sent me to the oncologist to have her look at my lymph nodes and see if she thought any further tests were necessary. She didn't seem at all concerned about the nodes but for my peace of mind the she did a whole panel of extra blood tests, 12 tubes all together, to see if anything could possibly be going on.

I am set up via email to receive lab results and they came in this morning, on a Saturday when I can't call the doctor , and there were several things that were abnormal. I have attached part of my results so that you can see what I am talking about.

1. My immunoglobulin M was 637; normal is under 248.
2. The test reads "Abnormal protein bands 1, 2 and 3" but there is no value listed. Does this mean abnormal bands were not detected at all? In other words "normal"? This part has me confused.
3. While not on this image, my sed rate was 36.

The CBC part of the test has not come yet but everything else was in normal limits.

If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know. It's going to be a long weekend waiting to call the doctor on Monday!

2016-04-16 10.49.45 v2.png (144.81 KiB) Viewed 552 times

[Multibilly]

Re: Thoughts about blood test results?

by Multibilly on Sun Apr 17, 2016 9:14 am

Hi Gracie,

Welcome to the forum.

I'm not a doc, but it looks like your abnormal protein bands are indeed registering no values (which is welcome news and likely rules out a disease such as multiple myeloma or another related cancer). Did your doctor also run a serum immunofixation test? The immunofixaiton test would tell you for sure if you had any abnormal "monoclonal" protein in your blood or not.

That then leaves the question as to why your IgM is elevated. If you have no abnormal (monoclonal/cancerous) protein in your blood, the excess IgM would then be "polyclonal" in nature. Some possible causes of excess polyclonal IgM include bacterial infections, early viral hepatitis, mononucleosis, rheumatoid arthritis, kidney damage, or a parasite infection.

Some of the above items can also cause an elevated SED rate.

But your doc really needs to sort this out with you. Good luck and let us know how things turn out.