somebody clever and knows about blood - come and tell me ......

[nickschick]

Ds has been diagnosed with cfs......Hes due blood tests and this is what they are testing....

full blood count
ferritin
esr
u's & Es
lft's
tft
glucose
cpk
auto antibodies
urine dipstick &culture

The paed says he had cervical lymph nodes??

his bp was normal.

whats all this about?? and do you have any thoughts?.....

im shamelessly bumping

Those sound like pretty standard blood tests to me - the ones they do as a bit of a screening to see if there is anything going on.

The cervical lymph nodes means the glands are up in his neck

Full blood count would be to see if he is anaemic or has a clotting disorder.

Ferritin - iron levels (sort of)

ESR - if raised is a sign of inflammation

U&Es - kidney function

LFTs - liver function tests

TFTs - thyroid function tests

Glucose - check for diabetes

CPK - can be used to check fro muscular problems

auto antibodies - I imagine they want to check for an autoimmune syndrome eg lupus

urine test - look for infection and also kidney function

It sounds like they are giving him a good workover! Hope you get some answers soon

PS I'm not a doctor (just a practice nurse) so the above is general advice rather than diagnostic advice.

ty cmot - hes had them done before and glandular fever shows up but i just wanted to be sure that there was no surprises coming.

lymph nodes indicate infection...yes??

thankyou.

Ty sidge is it normal for them to test quite irregularly?? the last bloods he had was over a year ago and will glandular fever still show in his blood?.

I know what each test is but wouldn't be sure of why they're testing for it.

ferritin is iron stores
esr - erthrocyte sedementation rate (can be an indicator for some auto immune stuff, maybe other things as well)
u&e, lfts are all to do with the liver
tfts - thyroid fuction test
cpk - if raised is an indicator of muscle disease
autoantibodies - believe they are a marker for autoimmune problems

My dad had all these tests when he was ill in hospital last year and they suspected some immune system disorder but it took 6 months to get a diagnosis. They all sound like fairly standard tests when Drs aren't sure why something is happening and they are trying to rule stuff out/get a diagnosis. Hope he's feeling better soon.

Must type faster. I'm sure Sidge knows more than me, all my knowledge is from weeks and weeks of pouring over google trying to work out what was wrong with my dad. Funnily enough I guessed it (correctly) before they did.

Hes been like this for at least 5 years some ups some downs.

ty goth

Raised lymph nodes can be caused by other things. My dad didn't have an ing=fection but had all the signs of having one inc raised lymph nodes, raised crp and raised wbc. He had an immune system disorder.

Ah right ....really grateful for all your input see i thought that it was just related to infection.