Low neutrophils in 8 year old - worried...

[notenoughbottle]

My son has some additional needs, he is under a consultant, who is crap, for query absence seizures/ASD amongst other things. I requested for him to have a thyroid check due to a strong family history of problems in this area. Letter written to us on the 2nd August said my son had low neutrophils and that bloods needed doing again within 3-4 weeks. We actually received the letter two days ago... Having consulted Dr Google (not at all clever) I'm now really worried about why this may be. He currently has really sore gums, quite swollen in places too, all the way round (he is cutting two adult teeth at top mind). Been to the dentist this morning, after a stop at the GP for repeat bloods, and she noticed that he also has swollen glands in his neck, especially on the one side and asked what his paediatrician was doing about it (this bring after I told her about the low neutrophils). I'm really worried that this might be serious. Does anyone have any experience with anything like this?

[notenoughbottle]

Anyone?

[dratsea]

Cutting teeth (?18/12) will cause swollen glands. Was the blood taken "cleanly", ie no trauma? What did they mean by low? What was differential count (lymphocytes, neutrophils etc) and did it include a blood film? Remember that 5% of blood tests on normal patients will be "abnormal" and because we test very few "normal" children we really do not know the normal values for a child at 18/12. Reassuring for all to repeat the test but please ignore Dr Google, even paediatric professionals do not know what is "low" in a child. I hope that helps.

[nocoolnamesleft]

Overwhelmingly most common cause of glands up and low neutrophils in a small child is viral infection. They're right to repeat it in a few weeks to make sure it's heading back to normal (okay, normalish - dratsea makes a good point about normal ranges!). The reason they're repeating it is to not miss the tiny minority who have a worrying problem...but it really is a tiny minority.

[notenoughbottle]

Thanks for replies... Recent blood test showed decrease to 1.3... From 1.4 retesting in a fortnight...

[summerdreams]

Hi I know how you feel and im sorry your going through this my 14 months has chronic neutropenia since birth. He takes and antibiotic 3 times a week to help with constant infections, 1.4 is only slightly lower then normal 1.5 is normal ill give you an example yesterday my son spent the day in a&e having bloods as he had a bacterial infection and if the neutrophils are over 0.5 we're aloud out with oral antibiotics and he has chronic neutropenia. At 1.3 you still have reserve to fight infection make sure they look into it though and if its on going ask to be referred to a heamatoligist. Most common causes are viral infection and they go back to normal in a few weeks. Also regarding mouth ulcers due to neutropenia only usually occur when neutrophils are extremely low