your crp values, please evaluate our levels of inflammation and level of quality of life

I'd be glad to know and compare my level of crohn with yours, and think the best way to do it is to compare our crp levels (c reactive protein) and the number of bowel movements and consistency, and extention of the disease. Please tell us your crp level and the normal level as stated in your bloodwork, because the last can be different according to the laboratory which makes the analysis.

I'll begin:

CRP: 1,6 (normal level <0,5); 1 month ago: 1,1 (<0,5)
Crohn site: in my terminal ileum and the last 2/3 of the colon and rectum
Number of BM: approximately 8 in the 24 hours, pretty much loose sometimes formed

I found this strange as the CRP doesn't appear very high but my symptoms are very annoying.

Thanks.

This was me before my surgery

CRP - between 50 and 75 (normal value <5)
BM's - 8-10 per day, pure liquid with mucus and rarely blood
location - 12 inches of terminal iluem with fistulas within the bowel loops

After surgery, who knows! BM's down to 3 per day, still liquid but no mucus or blood.

last blood work was Oct 21st

CRP-48.5

SED-45

Normal BM's at least twice a day, so guess I'm in remission, in Oct when the blood work was done I was having some cramping most days but no loose stools. VERY BLESSED!

 

My latest CRP was normal but my sed rate 4 weeks post surgery (removal of 10" of sigmoid and descending colon) was 150 !!!!! That's up from 40.

Last month, when I was doing better than I am now, my CRP (normal <8, low sensitivity test) was 8.4 and ESR 45 (normal 0-17) . But when I was in the hospital a year ago, I had CRP 224.8 and ESR 106.

The last few days I've been having about 7 bathroom trips, loose/liquid. In the hospital time, I was having more like 30. My location is colon only (except for all these weird skin things I'm having.....)

CrP is a non-specific measure of inflammation over the previous 24-48 hours.

CrP is reported in either mg/L or mg/dL depending on the lab.

Unless the number reported indicates whether it's mg/L or mg/dL you cannot accurately compare the numbers. Otherwise one person will say their CrP is 200 and another say theirs is 20 but both people have the same CrP level.

While it is often associated with increased inflammation, you can have a normal or near normal CrP and still have active Crohn's. That has always been true for my son whose highest CrP to date was 8 mg/L despite bleeding ulcers and extensive inflammation in the TI.

ESR is a non-specific measure of inflammation over the past 2+ weeks. It goes up when you get a bruise, a cold, sprain your ankle - pretty much any trauma will increase the ESR.

It can take several weeks for ESR to return to normal despite complete healing as far as the patient is concerned.

Like the CrP, ESR may or may not be elevated in active Crohn's. It is used much less than the CrP because the CrP helps pin down the current level of active inflammation better.

It is unlikely that your CrP or ESR will be in the normal range if you have a blockage, abscess/infection, perforation or other life-threatening condition. In those situations both measures will probably be off the charts.

NJMOM

I was having pains in Oct, but not now, I FEEL fine and have normal BMs last scope in march showed very minimal inflammation, but at the time I had blood work done I did have a sinus infection. so IDK! I do know you can feel great and not be in remission. My symptoms only started a few months before I was diagnosed in 08 and the dr said my intestines were so thin and bad that he thought I had crohns for a long time and never knew it! :)

Some labs indicate whether they used the HS assay on the lab report but, at least here, the labs we go to now only use the HS assay.

On those labs the amount is reported in mg/dL and the top of the normal range is 0.8 mg/dL. It is probably not correct to say this is the "same" as 8 mg/L.

Remember that every lab test has a margin of error for the normal range. As a general rule, the larger the normal range the larger the probable margin of error.

If I recall my statistics correctly (please feel free to correct me anyone with a more thorough knowledge of this), if you assume that the acceptable standard error of measurement (SEM) - or in lay terms the margin of error - is normally distributed and has a standard deviation of 5% then you would get these results from each test:

If you're using the non HS assay with a max normal level of 5, then 68% of the scores that have that result would actually fall somewhere between 4.75 and 5.25 (1 standard deviation of 5% from the mean).

If you're using the HS assay with a max normal of 0.8 then that score could be said to be somewhere between 0.76 and 0.84

If I told you my CrP was 0.76 mg/dL and then told you my CrP was 4.75 mg/L you would think those scores are very different right? But actually they both represent the same thing.

This is one reason why it's not always helpful to try to compare tests that measure the same thing but do it differently.

And I just made a whole bunch of assumptions that may not be true - especially the assumption that CrP results follow a normal distribution.

Hope that does more than muddy the waters for you.

What I have found most helpful, for both my son and myself, is to follow labs over time. It is good to be able to look back and see what your results were at a particular time when you knew you were doing well or badly and compare them to your current situation.

It works for spotting trends over time, for recognizing when a new result is really out of whack for you, for seeing response to med changes - anyway I find it a very useful thing.

I use an Excel spreadsheet I created for this purpose. I listed the labs in the first column, the normal ranges in the second column and then each column after that is results with the date at the top.

High or low results I enter in bold and colored font - red for high, blue for low.

Beware of entering the normal ranges if you use more than one lab system. If so they may have different normal reference ranges for some of the tests.

Glad I made your day. I think the high CrP is a pretty big deal but if you and your doctor know about it and it's the best that things can get - well then it's just information.