slightly low albumin?

Hi, folks,

I had routine blood work this week, which my doctor orders every four months on Entyvio. As usual, my white blood count is a little low (it's been this way for years, which is frustrating, but my doctor says it can come from stress and just the fact of having autoimmune disorders).

My CRP is .6 mg/L, which is great news!

However, for the first time, my Albumin; BCP is a little low at 33 g/L (reference range is 35-52). For those in other parts of the world, I think this translates to 3.3 g/dL, and I see reference ranges from 3.4 to 3.8 as a normal bottom number.

My other liver and kidney levels look okay from bloodwork. I didn't do a urine sample today, but my urine samples looked good in October.

Has anyone had experience with this on biologics? I made the mistake of looking it up, and there's just a lot of warnings about significantly increased risk of MORTALITY, so it's not sitting well with me, although I'm reassuring myself that this is just a little low and could be transient (I had a vaccine two weeks ago that would have increased inflammation; I just finished my period; I am thin and have never seemed to absorb protein super well). The past few years have given me some reasons to have health anxiety, and so I'm working through that right now.

Thanks for any insights! I'll be looking forward to a conversation with my doctor too--I have a chat booked with my family doctor for next week anyway, and will follow up with my GI specialist as well.

That number isn’t too bad honestly! I think you just need to eat more animal protein even as protein shakes if you can. I love equip beef protein powder. I remember back when I flared as a vegan, my albumin was 1.4 and the colorectal surgeon said he couldn’t even do a colectomy with a number that bad. He said he was afraid I would die on the table and not heal from the surgery at all. He told me to either go on tpn for 6-8 weeks before surgery or just to eat a lot of animal protein. I did the animal protein route and after 2 weeks, it was totally normal. I haven’t had low albumin since then. May not work but give it a try if you haven’t already.