My partner has turned yellow and I am scared

[bloodywhitecat]

Over the last couple of weeks his skin and eye whites have turned yellow, he also has dark urine which has not improved despite upping his fluid intake by at least an extra 2 litres a day, he is more tired than usual too. I don't want to scare myself witless and Google. He has called the GP and is having blood tests tonight.

Agree with the bloods coming back quicker - haematology turn mine around in an hour
And when something was really wrong, I got a phone call in the evening to ask me to go to hospital immediately. The bloods had only been taken that day

Word of warning - our GP left our 17yr old ds with a history of 9 weeks of bloody loose stools, severely anaemic, 9kg weight loss and rushing to the toilet 8 - 12 times a day with an urgent (3 month) referral to gastroenterology. Very fortunately I spoke to (ironically for this post) a friend who is a liver consultant who told me to take him to A&E as in her opinion he needed to be in hospital NOW! I did as the CONSULTANT advised! He was admitted through A&E (where he was immediately given a litre of IV fluid) and treated for severe acute colitis. IV steroids etc and a 5 day stay in hospital. He now has a dx of ulcerative colitis of his entire bowel.

I would do as the CONSULTANTS on this post advise not the GP.

@Grandmi are you a consultant?

Hope everything is ok OP....

Hope he's ok and the results come through quickly.

I don’t know where these surgeries are that do really fast blood tests, certainly not at my London surgery. Even if you go up to the local hospital to have the test done that day, the results take a few days.

Did he actually see a GP? At my (big) surgery, the nurses do bloods.

OP, has a GP actually set eyes on him or did he just see a phlebotomist?

Specialist nurse here. If any member of my family developed jaundice I would take them straight to A+E.

@TatianaBis I'm up north. In the case where the bloods were done at the GP, they didn't arrive back at the surgery, the lab flagged them to the GP as very wrong who then rang me
I have 12 weekly bloods at hospital and they are back in around an hour as I have to be there an hour before my appointment to have them taken and get the results back

if he is jaundiced then surely the blood results will be abnormal anyway which is all the gp/ooh will know, that's if the gp/ooh even gets urgent confirmation back from the labs. did the bloods get sent off straight away? I wouldn't waste time waiting for the gp on ooh to confirm the obvious and try and persuade him to go to hospital for proper tests.

I'd have taken him straight to A&E

(Disclaimer, I'm an A&E matron!)

Hopefully the lack of update means OP’s partner is in hospital being investigated.

I had similar, it was Hep E, I felt quite rubbish and could hardly eat for a good few weeks. I was only about 17 and naive, as soon as I heard 'hepatitis' I burst into tears and thought that was it, but the liver inflammation quickly came down and I was right as rain, no issues since and it was about 13 years ago.

A whole host of things can cause jaundice as it is a symptom as opposed to a diagnosis, so it is good he is getting blood tests and investigations can carry on from there, it's important to remember the liver is an amazing organ in recovering from damage.

Dh's lft results are always back within a day and even quicker when the results are worse than usual. (longterm chemo and the liver is struggling)

Good luck. It's probably nothing too serious.

@TatianaBis

Nonsense - even my big stand annual health check results are back within 48 hours

Never had an NHS GP blood test come back within 48 hours.

Generally they take at least a few days, and sometimes up to a week.

We now have a time frame of Thurs. Which is not 48 hours.

............ Sorry, But this isnt true.
If i have bloods done in the morning, 9 times out of 10 they are back the next day....

@TatianaBis

I don’t know where these surgeries are that do really fast blood tests, certainly not at my London surgery. Even if you go up to the local hospital to have the test done that day, the results take a few days.

........

Iv had out patient hospital results back from St Georges hospital the same day....

Hope all is OK OP and it turns out to be something minor.

Sorry, But this isnt true. If i have bloods done in the morning, 9 times out of 10 they are back the next day....

Sorry but who are you to say what is true at my London GP surgery??!

Hi OP
I haven't read the whole thread but it could just be Gilbert's syndrome, it's a hereditary condition where there is a build up of bilirubin, sometimes no symptoms, other times skin and eyes turn yellow and it causes fatigue. It's not serious though.

Hope all is ok.

Iv had out patient hospital results back from St Georges hospital the same day....

St George’s is a large teaching hospital. My local is small with no A&E.

Phone on Thursday,if it's more urgent results will be phoned to go and to him.
Have a bag prepared as he may need admitting for further investigations.
Until then stay calm and enjoy any time together as visiting in hospitals is very limited.

Did he actually see a GP? At my (big) surgery, the nurses do bloods.

Well i think any nurse seeing him in the alleged state he's in woudld have referred that to a doctor there and then else she may be blamed for neglect or whatever you want to call it!..

So this Yellow man walks into a bar and says to the receptionist?..

These a wired joke somewere in this ..not!

My tiny surgery in Northumberland had next day blood results as routine, and same day if urgent & before 3pm. The hospital was >30 miles away.