What lab results are most important to follow?

[drz]

Spent a couple days in local hospital after being home over 11 weeks. Was hoping to make 12 but no such luck. Passed out during routine lab work at clinic and ended up in emergency room and then two nights in hospital. They did lab work every day and told me about results they thought important to monitor my progress or lack thereof. for me it was WBC, RBC, HGB (hemoglobin), CREA (Creatin), GFR and CRP ( a measure of inflammation I think) and things to measure infection in urine. There were lots of other lab results which I didn't know what they meant. I understood the regular checks for blood pressure and noise in lungs which they did every hour and the daily X ray of lungs to check to see if I was bleeding in the lungs but wonder what other measures people consider important to evaluate our Wegener's disease.


What measures do most people follow in their lab work or consider important in measuring their progress?

[elephant]

Drz, did they find out why you passed out? It could be a sign that your Wegeners is active, how is your heart? Sounds like they did the right labs.
WBC- to check for infection
HGB- make sure you aren't anemic
Creatinine to see if your kidneys are functioning normally...
I would say that getting the labs done and checking your urine and any change in heart/lungs ( symtoms of shortness of breath).

[pberggren1]

I follow CBC, WBC, Hemoglobin, Creatinine, CRP, ESR, and ANCA.

[JanW]

My doctor follows: platelet count, ESR, hi-CRP. Also checks my liver enzymes since I'm on mtx.

[drz]

What is ESR?

They are following my WBC because it got too low and they put Cytoxan meds on hold. I have needed several blood transfusions in past due to low HGB so they follow that one too. My kidney function improved from IV's while in hospital GFR and CREA measures but this might be temporary.

They found out I was dehydrated which contributed to low Blood Pressure and fainting. They attributed the dehydration to my recurrent bladder infection which came back even though on a prophylactic antibiotic but it became resistant to the antibiotic so they had to find a new one. They also gave me a temporary increase in steroids when inflammation markers increased but they seemed to go down quickly after treating the infection so I am back on prednisone taper down at 12.5.

Thanks for information.

[JanW]

ESR is also known as 'sed' (short for sedimentation rate), which is a measure of inflammation that moves more slowly than the CRP. So, you could have your inflammation under control, but your sed rate would still be outside of the norm.