One thing that Spero Clinic noticed on my bloodwork, which no other dr has ever pointed out before, is that I have a high monocyte count.
As mentioned, they don't do expensive, often unreliable testing. They prefer a simpler approach based on the complete blood count. It's non specific, but at least gives you a birds eye view of what might be going on.
They pointed out that my monocytes are quite high. Around 12%. Normal is 2-8%. I assumed that this was because my WBC is usually low so my monocyte % went up, but tonight I had a chance to take a look, and my WBC over the past 9y has ranged from 2.1 to 4.4, but my monocytes are always 10-14%. So always high.
They said that this typically means there's a bacterial infection. Monocytes are macrophages. They ingest other pathogens, and clean up and dispose of dead cells. The only reason for monocytes to be high would be from some sort of consistent tissue damage, or an infection, or damage from an infection. My monocytes were high before the symptoms/damage, so has me thinking they're onto something w/ the bacterial infection.
Curious, for those w/ chronic lyme/babs/bart, what do your monocytes show?
My lymphocytes were also a touch high. They said that this was likely due to a latent viral infection, which makes sense as B and T cells tend to attack viruses, although they can attack other things. But they felt this was secondary to the bacterial pathogen. They were non specific, and suggested potentially lyme or babs. I assume a stomach pathogen like protozoa is also possible.
Interesting take.
https://www.healthline.com/health/monocytes-highEdit: This may be a case of a little bit of information being a dangerous thing. Seeing some drs saying basically what my first thought was. If you have low wbc your % monocytes can be skewed high, and only the absolute count is relevant. Seems like maybe there’s nothing to see here
Post Edited (dcd2103) : 9/18/2021 7:19:46 PM (GMT-6)