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Do Autoimmune Diseases Show Up In Blood Tests
Do autoimmune diseases show up in blood tests and if they do, is it accurate? What does it mean if all of your labs are within the lab ranges but you still have symptoms? Is there another way to look at things?
Today we are getting into the labs your doctor may or may not be running and how they can give you clues as to what the root causes is for your autoimmune disease. We will also be touching on if these fancy labs that you can have done are a distraction or a necessary step.
Now if you're thinking oh, this doesn't apply to me because I don't even think I have an autoimmune disease, stay tuned these lab results, this information is important for everyone for you to look at when you have an annual physical, or when you have any other lab work done.
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Do Autoimmune Diseases Show Up In Blood Tests
Rough Transcript (listening is best)
Do Autoimmune Diseases Show Up in Blood Tests
Do autoimmune diseases show up in blood tests and if they do, is it accurate? What does it mean if all of your labs are within the lab ranges but you still have symptoms? Is there another way to look at things?
Today we are getting into the labs your doctor may or may not be running and how they can give you clues as to what the root causes is for your autoimmune disease. We will also be touching on if these fancy labs that you can have done are a distraction or a necessary step.
Now if you're thinking oh, this doesn't apply to me because I don't even think I have an autoimmune disease, stay tuned these lab results, this information is important for everyone for you to look at when you have an annual physical, or when you have any other lab work done.
Intro
Welcome if this is your first time listening - I’m Audrey Christie - I’m a functional and integrative nurse nutritionist and energy medicine practitioner. I help women start their very own Autoimmune Revolution so you can stop chasing symptoms and learn how to heal your body from autoimmune disease.
There's a lot of room in a normal blood test result...
In conventional medicine, labs are looked at as inside or outside of the reference range. You are either higher or lower and if you're within the normal range - nothing is wrong. And as you may have experienced for yourself, there is a lot of sickness and symptoms inside those reference ranges. In fact, if you are well outside those ranges - that is only about 2.5% of the population on most lab tests. If you compare that to the growing number of autoimmune disease cases - you can see just how much sickness can live within a normal lab result.
What do your autoimmune blood tests reveal?
Let me share a story with you...
I get lots of stories in my practice, here’s one that stood out as needing to share with you today:
Kim shared, “My primary care doc believes I have an autoimmune disease, but I'm still 4 months away from the first available appointment with a specialist. Since I can't see my doc until then and I'm going bananas trying to figure out what's going on.
My symptoms set in around February of this year, just in time for the world to end due to the lockdown.
I'm suffering from pain in ALL of my joints, exhaustion, headaches, extreme photo-sensitivity, and a myriad of other things.
Thus far, my labs have shown that I have a positive ANA, high C-Reactive Protein, high RDW, high ESR, low HGB, low MCV, low MCH, low MCHC, and just overall very low iron.”
From just that little snippet I was able to tell without the actual values, at least one of the roots of her trouble - low stomach acid.
Specifically that her CRP elevation is going to be an indicator of inflammation, which we knew was happening without the lab proof. RDW elevated can indicate a b12 deficiency.
ESR elevated is another marker for inflammation Low HGB is anemia Low MCV, MCHC, MCH are more indicators of vitamin b deficiency and anemia.
So there are a couple of ways to look at this...
Man, it stinks to wait to see so many months to see the specialist OR you have a few months to turn this around so you don’t need one.
Luckily all of this b vitamin trouble can be the cause of lots of her symptoms, particularly because that is absorbed through the lining of the stomach with the help of stomach acid. She also confirmed that she had been using antacids for years and frequently had heartburn (which is caused by low stomach acid). This one of her roots causes a very simple root cause (remember, autoimmune disease is a tree with many roots) to work on while she waited to hear back from her doctor or specialists.
If you didn’t listen to last week’s episode go back and do that now, it has steps to test your own stomach acid and see if this may be one of the root causes for you too.
Now some would say, "but Audrey - you need to know how much the labs are out of range," and yes you do to some extent, but not to get started healing.
Autoimmune blood tests a deeper look...
So today I want to talk to you about some of your labs that you can look at and help to know where to start your healing journey, whether you have an official autoimmune diagnosis. This will help you find your root causes, become the healer in your home, and human suit and start your very own Autoimmune Revolution.
In conventional medicine, labs are looked at as inside or outside of the reference range. And as you may have experienced for yourself, there is a lot of sickness and symptoms inside those reference ranges. In fact, if you are well outside those ranges - that is only about 2.5% of the population on most lab tests. If you compare that to the growing number of autoimmune disease cases - you can see just how much sickness can live within a normal lab result.
That’s why if you have symptoms, whether you have lab results or not, it is critical for you to advocate for yourself and understand that there IS a cause and that “we don’t know” isn’t a good excuse to dismiss you.
So today we are going to look at the gap versus those optimal levels to thrive. If you have had recent labs and you have symptoms - pull them out - you are about to be empowered in your own Revolution.
Complete Blood Count or CBC
Let’s start with a CBC or Complete Blood Count. This is a common and really inexpensive lab test. you almost never get Labs without this test. It looks at lots of different cells particularly red blood cells and white blood cells. So red blood cells are oxygen-carrying cells and white blood cells are involved in immune function.
There are a couple of important things to look at, well they're all important but I want you to notice a few things.
- Red Blood Cells (RBC) - Your red blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the tissues. if they are increased from a functional perspective meaning they could still be in reference range on the lab report, but if they are increased from a functional and integrative perspective then we could be looking at dehydration chronically for example if they are decreased then we're looking at something around anemia. This gives us clues much like the story I told above that there is something going on in the stomach lining.
- MCV (Mean Corpuscular Volume), MCH (Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin), MCHC (Concentration of Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin) - These are all different measurements I have a single red blood cell. They help us determine what type of anemia your bread blood cells indicate is it B12 and folate anemia low stomach acid low iron or low B6. All of these happen within the reference range that the labs put out. What this means is that you could be having a whole lot of fatigue, and at the same time keep being told that nothing's wrong, or you're lazy, or something in that line of information.
- White Blood Cells (WBC) - White blood cells are a marker for your overall immune function. Making them very important when determining if you have chronic underlying inflammation or acute infection or inflammation. Well within the reference ranges there are lots of symptoms, for example, lymphocytes are part of your adaptive immune system. When they are elevated but still within the reference range and can indicate chronic inflammation when they are decreased but still within the reference range and decreased below the reference range as well they can indicate an acute infection.
Complete Metabolic Profile or CMP
Now let’s look at another common CMP or Complete Metabolic Profile. The CMP also sometimes called a Basic Metabolic Profile or BMP tells us more about stress and nutrition and glandular function so the glands that produce your chemical Messengers in your body. It also gives us insight into liver function digestive function and many many other insights. A few to take note of:
- Sodium and Potassium are critical indicators if you are outside of the reference range like 2.5% of humans on the planet then you are having life-threatening symptoms. But if you're inside the reference range you could be having adrenal fatigue you could be dehydrated you could be having severe edema you could be having digestive troubles like IBS like symptoms, you could be having hypertension, you could be in some kind of acidosis, you could be having thyroid or parathyroid troubles. All of these symptoms within the reference range.
- Albumin and Globulin can tell us about your ability to digest proteins, your oxidative stress, autoimmune tissue damage, potential parasites, vitamin C deficiency, and even liver dysfunction. As you can imagine these all lead to significant daily lasting symptoms that might be deemed as “in your head" because your Labs could still be in the normal reference range.
ANA or Antinuclear Antibody Autoimmune Blood Test
Finally, let's talk about the all-important ANA, or Anti-Nuclear Antibody, the only important test for autoimmune disease. And I say this with heavy spoonful a sarcasm. If you remember my story from last week a client came to me saying that her doctor said that she did not have an autoimmune disease suddenly because her ANA was normal. When previously it had not been normal and they were pushing her out to all of these specialists.
She still had a lot of symptoms, and while having a negative and a is certainly not a bad thing it is also not always indicative of not having an autoimmune disease, and certainly not indicative of being symptom-free those are two different things
The Antinuclear antibody tests the auto-antibodies (auto-antibodies are immune cells that attack the self) that are directed against a variety of antigens that normally live inside the nucleus. To pull on those 6th-grade science muscles, the nucleus is the powerhouse of the cell. These antibodies are found in a lot of different connective tissue diseases, we see it often with lupus, systemic sclerosis, Sjogren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid disease, and something called mixed connective tissue disease.
Now in most cases when you get a positive ANA, it is cause for further investigation for sure. It’s cause to investigate your roots, and if you wish to investigate your conventional treatment options. What gets me is when the ANA is negative or when it's not speckled, a speckled result usually means, about 95% of the time, it indicates lupus...but when the ANA is negative that is not a reason to stop looking to stop trying to heal the body to stop trying to get to the bottom of your find root causes for your symptoms.
Do you see all the room for illness inside the normal results?
This is why it is so important to be empowered, knowledgeable, to advocate for you. You have the ability to be the healer in your home and human suit. Get started by checking to see if your symptoms could indicate an autoimmune disease with my free quiz here.
Once you get those results you will also get a few emails starting with Autoimmune Revolution Kickstart, but also with some very important trackers - like the lab tracker - that I have created for you. It’s all completely free info and has actionable steps you can take today to kick start your autoimmune revolution, even if you haven't got an official diagnosis. Even if your lab tests were negative. I encourage you to head to audreychristie.com/131 for the link
To wrap this up...
To wrap this up - know that you should not ever be dismissed if you are experience symptoms, so make sure you are empowered and knowledgable and can not only advocate for yourself but also take your health into your own hands. You are responsible for your own health and wellness.
Thank you so much for tuning in, if you have a second it would mean the world to me if you could leave a rating or review! That helps me help more people start an autoimmune revolution of their own. I’d be oh so grateful.
I hope you have the most magical and restful day friends, and I challenge you to leave your world, however you can, a little better than how you found it when you got up this morning.
Be well.