Low red blood count? What's happening

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Hi Donna,

I will be glad to share my results. I visit the hemo next Thursday. Meanwhile I am headed to Florida this weekend for some fishing. The R&R will certainly do me good.Have a nice weekend.
 
I visted the hemotologist today. They ruled cancer out. They think that either my red blood cells are being broken as they travel through the repaired heart or that I have developed an antibody that is popping the cells. They took 17 vials of blood to run extensive test and told me that they would review the results with me in two weeks unless they saw a major problem in which case they would call me ASAP. The staff and doctor were great. They spent a lot of time explaining the blood tests from my physical.

It was real heart wrenching to see the various cancer patients.They have to be real heros to handle the chemo.
 
Hi Cp,

Glad to hear you are continuing your quest for a reason why. It is sad visiting a hemotology office as I was taken aback by realizing the other people there were in treatment for cancer. Ignorantly, I thought everyone was there for anemias.

I certainly didn't get the labs you are getting. I had a 24 hr Urine and they did test to see if I had an auto immune problem.

Your people did seem to be more aware of the damage to the blood possibly done by the heart. My homo didn't seem to want to touch that preferring I had my valve checked and for my cardio to figure the rest out and he felt it was the hemo's problem. I feel in a catch 22. Seems like you have some positive action going on.

Thanks for letting us know and I guess its going to be awhile to find out what is going on. Did they give you a course of treatment?

donna
 
With regard to treatment they mentioned possibly taking an iron tablet and if antibodies are a problem another pill.

Sadly I am back from my Florida fishing trip.We caught around 17 reds, 2 blues and a few trout. Had a blast.Back in the real world now.:(
 
Been following this thread, and I have a question. Joe, as I've mentioned before, had this problem too. He also had many transfusions throughout his long medical history. He had problems matching his blood due to the many transfusions he had had and the many antigens that appeared in his blood because of the transfusions.

They often had to call the regional bloodbank because the hospitals just couldn't fulfill blood that matched. Sometimes he had to wait days for blood to be found.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

Do you think this could contribute to blood breakup?

His many doctors found some answers for his blood problems, but never did find the total answer. Even the hematologist was stumped after running bunches of tests. The iron, ProCrit, folic acid and occasional transfusions kept things just below normal most of the time, but it did dip lower from time to time.

One doctor said hemolysis, another said no, that was not what was happening.

It was all very confusing for everyone.
 
Nancy are you asking if the people posting about their low RBC have built andibodies that make it hard for them to get blood?
I don't think theis would be the problem months later, If you get blood that has an antigen that you built and antibody too, normally the reaction would be right away.

editted to add, it is possible to have a sitituation where you have an auto imune antibody or autoimmune hemolytic anemia, where your own immune system attacks your own blood cells
 
All I know is Joe's doctors have said the more transfusions a person has had, the more difficult it becomes to match the blood. I don't know all the mechanisms.

And that was true for Joe. When I would question the blood techs about it, they would tell me that he had many antigens.

I may be talking nonsense, but that is what we were told by several docs and techs.

If someone can clarify my thoughts that would be helpful.

I always thought he had some sort of autoimmune disease, and so did a few of his docs. So you may be on to something with the blood.
 
Nancy said:
All I know is Joe's doctors have said the more transfusions a person has had, the more difficult it becomes to match the blood. I don't know all the mechanisms.

And that was true for Joe. When I would question the blood techs about it, they would tell me that he had many antigens.

I may be talking nonsense, but that is what we were told by several docs and techs.

If someone can clarify my thoughts that would be helpful.

I always thought he had some sort of autoimmune disease, and so did a few of his docs. So you may be on to something with the blood.
Click to expand...



IF it helps the easiest antigen /antibody in blood typing to think of is Rh ( the main one is D antigen). If you are O pos (you have the D antigen) you can get O neg blood. BUt if you give O pos blood to someone that is O negative, that person can develope Anti D. This also can happen when Rh Neg mom carries a RH positive baby, which is why they have to get a shot of Rho gam, which keeps them from building Rh antibodies, which would attack the next Rh positve baby.
There are many antigens outside the ABO/rh ones (a common 1 is Kell) and if you get blood that has one of the antigens you don't have(say your Kell Neg) you can build antibodies against it (in this case Anti Kell). Which isn't a problem that time, but next time they do a Type and Cross your antibody screen will come up pos. So from then on you must get blood that is negative for that antibody(or in this case Kell Neg). The more Blood you get the more your chances are of building multiple antibodies, so the units have to be Antigen negative for every Antibody you have. BUT Not everyone that gets alot of blood builds antibodies.
 
I think the problem was, in his case, that he had to have transfusions years ago when high quality testing was not available. Probably today, when someone gets blood, they are much more careful, and such thing are minimized.
 
Nancy said:
I think the problem was, in his case, that he had to have transfusions years ago when high quality testing was not available. Probably today, when someone gets blood, they are much more careful, and such thing are minimized.
Click to expand...

I'm glad I helped, I was hoping I didn't make it more confusing. You know it seems some people just build more antibodies than others,I had thousand of poeple that got blood weekly and never built 1 antibody, then others it seemed would build them just looking at a unit of blood and of course poor Joe would be one of the "Lucky" ones.
 
I received good news today. The Hemo said that the tests did not indicate there was anything wrong with me. He speculates that there is turblence in the heart that is causing the red blood cells to break apart.He said my anemia was very slight and that I will have no symptons. He put me on a prescription (pill) that has all the components used to build red blood cells.I am to report back to him in a few weeks to make sure that I tolerate the pill ok.:)
 
CP, thanks for sharing the good news and I hope your body will tolerate the pill and you feel better.

Let us know the results in two weeks. Would you like to share the brand of the pill?

Good luck:)
 
Thanks for giving us the good news. I am relieved to hear that it coud be as turbulence vs something more ominous.

I want your Dr!!! I am still hanging until my next app't in May!

Will you let us know the name of the medication? I hope it works for you. I would love to know more about it to have something to go on.

I am wondering if this is more common than we know.

Good luck with the new med.
 
The medication that I am on is called TandemPlus.I take one pill a day between breakfast and lunch. So far so good. Hope you are all doing well!
 
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