Test Results Causing Panic

I’ve had white blood cell count a little lower than that, because my immunpglobulins IgG and IGM are below the range. This is labeled a fancy word for low immune disease. My globulan protein which is part of total protein count is also low.

So back to you, what were your high values that you listed here before you had IGIV injections?

This is unfortunately the extent of my knowledge but it may help someone else that knows more than I do if they read this

i'm no expert - but IVIG is immunoglobulins so if it doesn't have some impact on your levels - then surely its not doing its job - by which i mean surely some influence is expected ?

ref the low white cells - are you taking any antimicrobials at all?

or perhaps it doesn't matter as the immunoglobulins ( lots of antibodies in there) are perhaps tagging everything foreign and then your white cells are going after that - using themselves up - and getting a bit depleted.

this is something that happens with abx for the same reasons - so i wonder if that could be happening here also
if so it might just be part of the process - and not a big concern as such.

overall only the white blood cell count looks a bit concerning - but even here, as you are someone that typically has pretty low counts of white blood cells - I'm not sure if it should be seen as alarming that they are lower than normal while on IVIG - perhaps not.

this paper seems to suggest people with auto-immune conditions often get a drop of neutrophils ( the most common white blood cell ) while on IVIG and its normally transitory

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6946410/

i would try not to freak out just yet. :up

Outside of the autoimmne condition, which we already knew about, I dont see anything to cause alarm here RW.

Fistly, the immunoglobulins will go high on IVIG. Thats what IVIG is, its literally immunoglobulin. In fact, its probably not high enough. Mine is around 2800 on IVIG, but your dosage is much lower, and suboptimal like we talked about. It will also raise your blood globulin level.

IVIG also will lower your complements, not raise them. My c4 drops from 21 to about 12 every time I go on ivig. The complements are needed to clear the immune complexes the ivig creates. So low complement is bad if they're being used to attack tissue, but not that concerning in this context.

The WBC will also drop on IVIG. I forget the exact speculated mechanism for why this happens. Mine usually drops from a 3.5 to a 2.2-2.5 area. Same goes for neutrophils, which are the largest component of the WBC.

The RBC and hemoglobin is part of the autoimmune condition. This Lupus/Sjogrens/UCTD family of diseases is known to cause low numbers. It has something to do with the bone marrow acting funky. A girl i know got an aHSCT stem cell transplant for her Lupus/Sjogrens disease (she had both), and she posted a graph of her RBC. It was always bouncing around that low normal line, but it rebounded once the disease was in remission post transplant. I have a UCTD diagnosis and my RBC, platelets, hemoglobin...these things often are low normal, and sometimes just below normal, and they bounce around a lot.

IVIG can skew a lot of lab results. Your measured sed rate will also explode, but thats a false measurement. The same goes for any antibodies you will have tested. You can't tell if theyre from the IVIG or if your body is making them.

Seems like every one of us with autoimmune gets sent to a hematologist every few years for a checkup like these. But i do not expect anything to come from it, those numbers are all in fitting with your disease, not necessarily a cancer. But might as well be checked out.

I dont know why your GFR is higher other than yours seems to bounce around a lot. It's just an estimate based on a very imperfect calculation, remember.

Hows the rash coming along? Any improvement? Have they biopsied it?

Post Edited (dcd2103) : 12/4/2022 4:50:58 PM (GMT-8)

Forgot. dcd - rash is a a lot better but itching is not at night. And did you see where I mentioned IVIG helps Candida and it appears it is no longer on my tongue?