Blood work has me in tears

[Carys]

I've never understood why they give these print-outs to the untrained (us) especially in advance of actually talking about them, its an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

[pulisa]

I've never understood why they give these print-outs to the untrained (us) especially in advance of actually talking about them, its an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

It's asking for trouble, isn't it? Trouble is, people seek them out to pore over and then inevitably catastrophise when a level is minimally outside of "normal" ranges

[Smafraid]

So I still haven’t been able to call and ask for results. I’m almost happy I didn’t get a call yet today. I was sick to my stomach more than once today when the phone vibrated and when I tried to dial their number. I had to stop. Now I’m walking around almost feeling drunk. That derealization feeling if that’s what it’s called. My head feels like I’m on a boat, I’m hot, and I have this feeling right under my ribs like an elephant is sitting on my chest and crushing my stomach. Couldn’t be indigestion from the entire 48 ounces of coffee I had today. Nope it’s probably a symptom of the disease the blood work showed. Gonna be a fun night. Thanks for listening and responding guys. I am actually reading your responses over and over to calm myself down.

[pulisa]

The blood work didn't show any disease. Don't you think you would have been called by your doctor if it had?

[NoraB]

I've never understood why they give these print-outs to the untrained (us) especially in advance of actually talking about them, its an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

I refused to have access to my records when I was ill with HA. Once my head was sorted I requested them. It's helpful for me to keep an eye on when I had tests done, and also my C125 test - which is apparently up to me to request the bloods etc but if HA was to kick in again, I would have the service removed because it's too open to misunderstanding which just ramps everything up..

[Smafraid]

After this I am 100 percent not checking the box for send me my bloodwork next test. Google is scaring the crap out of me. I do know I have high cholesterol which I already jumped into gear to fix. Some sites calm me. Low rdw isn’t linked to anything bad. High albumin can cause high calcium and up to 35 10.5 isn’t high. Other sites say oh calcium. Malignancy. High albumin. Liver disease. Rdw sounds bad. The results were in on Friday or Saturday online. It’s Tuesday at 9:30 and so far no call. I guess I should take this as a sense of relief. I can’t call. That sounds crazy to say but I physically cannot being myself to call and ask for my results.

[Careful1]

Why are you worried about a low RDW? It’s a good thing. It means all your red blood cells are uniform in size, this is desirable.
You shouldn’t try to interpret your labs because you don’t know what your looking for and all it’s gonna do is cause you needless worry. If your doctor was concerned in the slightest he/she would have contacted you.
Wait to go over your blood work with your doctor, don’t jump to conclusions.

[NoraB]

Google is scaring the crap out of me.

You know the deal with Google, yet you chose to do it anyway.

Nobody forced you to type those words in.

This is down to a choice you made, not Google.

[Smafraid]

So dr called. Wants to check calcium again in a month so apparently he’s not alarmed. Wants me to follow up with gastro since liver had been high 3 years ago and now. I have fatty liver. Another site I was on said they have had doctors miss cirrhosis and misdiagnose fatty liver. I feel like getting a second opinion might set off my ha

[Careful1]

Fatty liver is EXTREMELY common and reversible. The more you keep googling the more your gonna freak yourself out. Why not just stop googling?

You do not have cirrhosis. There is more to diagnosing cirrhosis then just elevated liver enzymes. The work up you have had thus far proves that you don’t have it but let’s just say for a minute you did have cirrhosis (you don’t but let’s just pretend) what now? The treatment for cirrhosis is the same as fatty liver and fibrosis. They can’t give you a medication to fix it! They can only treat the symptoms which you have none of. People can and do live for decades with cirrhosis. It’s not an automatic death sentence.

If your concerned about liver disease just treat your liver good and take care of it, that’s how you prevent and treat liver disease.