Does anyone understand ...blood test results?(for Arthritis)

[LittleMissProcrastinator]

If they were testing for arthritis and they said the results were:
for a normal person 13 and mine were 23 what does this mean? and what do the numbers mean? what are they looking for?

[lillibet1]

sounds like they are looking at your ESR levels although 13 sounds like quite low normal for a female your esr is a measure of inflammation in basic terms women tend to have a higher esr normally and it also increases with age

[LittleMissProcrastinator]

Thanks lillibet, I think she might have been a new doctor (but, not saying she doesn't know what she is on about) she was checking a lot of things in her book.
I don't know what the normal level of whatever it is should be but she said 13.
anyway she said mine was 23 so higher than "normal" according to doctor.
so does this mean I have arthritis?
Don't really know a lot about it but some one in my family has Rheumatoid arthritis.
I have knee pain sometimes.
Can anyone give me more information?

[LittleMissProcrastinator]

I was feeling tired / fed up when I first went to doctor and I mentioned about my knee while I was there. It turns out I am anaemic. (have had that before).
I have had aches and pains in knees, hip, wrists on and off for years but never bothered to go to GP.

[LittleMissProcrastinator]

Shitmagnet Just read through your post again.
I had two blood tests done, I guess one was for anaemia and the other for knee pain.

[LittleMissProcrastinator]

[catsareevil]

Its normal for a doctor to not have the reference ranges for all the different blood tests memorised, so the fact that your doctor was looking them up isnt a reason to lose confidence in her.
Are you due to go back to the GP again? Some of your questions arent possible to answer without knowing what tests were done, your GP should be able to explain to you what tests were done, what they were for and what the results mean.