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Recent bloodwork.

cgres123cgres123
in General Training Discussions

I went in for my annual check up. Dr took lots of blood and everything came back ok. I asked for my reports as I keep my own medical records too.

I got home and looked the reports over. My hemoglobin shows 18.6 the range is 12 - 17.7, hematocrit reads 53.5 with a range of 38 -51 and the MCV is 98 with a range of 79 -97 and lastly MCH result was 34 with a range of 26 -33. Albeit the result is SLIGHTLY higher than its range I was wondering if anyone might comment on this?

Comments

  • mtlarsonmtlarson
    Dehydration - lowers the plasma (liquid part of the blood) causing the cells to be more pack and numbers to be slightly higher.
  • trisumaitrisumai
    You should get the HgB repeated to make sure it does come down. You have to be all sorts of dehydrated to raise your HgB that high if your HgB is normally in the 13-15 range (as in most males). Presumably you weren't super dehydrated although you were probably fasting. Was your BUN elevated on your chem panel. I look at blood counts all day long and I can count the number of times I've seen a HgB of 18.6 although most of my folks are old/ill and I am not a hematologist. Typically endurance athletes get a dilutional anemia. The upper limit of HgB at my hospital is 17.5 so the ranges seem about the same. Of equal importance is what your numbers have been in the past. If it remains elevated then your doc may need to consider why you might be hemoconcentrated.
  • steve Beyersteve Beyer
    MCV is "mean corpuscular volume", or the size of the red blood cells. They develop in the bone marrow and start out very large but decrease in size before being released into circulation. When they are too big( ie.. the MCV is elevated), it's usually due to being low in Vit. B12 which is needed for proper development. This can happen even when taking oral supplemental B vit's for a variety of reasons which I won't go into, if that is the case with you, try a sublingual form, or get a B12 injection. I suggest this because this is a slight form of anemia- in other words, your blood can't transport O2 as well- not what an endurance athlete wants image
  • cgres123cgres123
    @ Kar Ming Lo ,Looking at my past labs I'm in the normal range as far as hemoglobin 17.0 ,17.4 and the Bun is 22 or normal for all labs.

    @ Steve MCV, VERY interesting, looking back at a lab from last summer the MCV was 100 going back to Jan of 2012 it was 101.3 then April 2012 it was 97 Hummmm?
  • trisumaitrisumai
    That's good that you have higher HgB levels in the past. Probably should get it repeated in a few months just to make sure it's not persistently eleveated. Do you smoke (I assuem not) or have sleep apnea?
  • cgres123cgres123
    @ Kar-Ming Lo, no smoking and I sleep like a baby.
  • cgres123cgres123
    Well I started the sublingual B12 with folic acid. I will give this a shot for a month and re-check.
  • steve Beyersteve Beyer
    Good luck David. I will say that it usually takes a bit longer (2-3 mths) to see objective changes on labs with my patients, but interestingly the subjective improvement is a little quicker. So don't get discouraged if you decide to repeat blood tests after one month and not as much change as you would like to see. Again, thanks to the response to my post image
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