Why would ds have to go for a second blood test?

[arabella2]

Hello
My ds who is almost 7 is ill (temperature) almost exactly every 3 to 4 weeks. I took him for a blood test a week ago. We have now received a letter telling us to go for another full blood count blood test in a month. I phoned the surgery and have an appointment to talk about this with the doctor next tuesday and also to get the slip for the blood test (at the hospital). On the phone the receptionist listed a whole host of things which were fine but could not get in to the part of the computer for the other results - the things which were missing from her list were white and red blood counts and haemoglobin levels and maybe other things too. The doctor will apparently be able to shed more light. She said if he had something as bad as leukaemia (me worrying aloud) they would have phoned me. Does anybody have any idea why they would want a repeat blood test?

Your DS may have a virus which can sometimes alter white blood cells and then settle (go back to normal) once the virus is out of his system. Hence, why they may want to test agin in another month just to be sure. If it was anything serious they would contact you immediately. Don't worry kids are always ill and eventually things seem to sort themselves out.

My friend has a condition called 'neutropenia' which means the blood cells, are not maturing enough, she gets every cough and cold going. It started with glandular fever when she was a teenager. And she has to have lots of blood work done. I would not worry about leukemia. Think one blood test needs to be compared against another to see if there are any changes, I am sure they would have found a cancer problem on the first test.

Either to test if anything has changed, or because they're worried that for some reason the first test may not have been accurate. Happens all the time IME. Dd was tested for neutropenia and she had to have a long series of blood tests done.