Blood Work of DOOOOOOOOOM

Well, it might be. I don't know yet. I had blood drawn Thursday a week ago, and the nurse called me Monday evening. The doctor wants to SEE ME about my blood work. My appt is tomorrow (Thursday).

I had CMP, cholesterol (total, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides), HbA1c, and B12 done. I quit taking the Zetia she'd prescribed 6 weeks ago because of muscle pain, but I was taking the fish oil as I discussed in a previous post. So she might be wanting to discuss my cholesterol. But she usually just tells me she's "calling something in", which I usually don't get, because I can't take the statins or the Zetia-type drugs.

Or there's something going on with my liver. I'm taking Wellbutrin, Protonix, and ranitidine (Zantac); Wellbutrin and Protonix can both damage the liver.

Rhabdomyolysis will show up in the CMP, in the liver tests. Maybe there's something that showed up from the Zetia.

The CMP also looks at BUN and creatinine -- maybe my kidneys are having issues. This is something I'm really worried about, because of Mama and her dialysis adventures...

Why oh why do they do this to you? Tell you something cryptic like "the doctor wants to see you about your blood work" then make you wait FOUR FUCKING DAYS to tell you what the deal is!! Well, I'll know at 9 am Thursday morning I guess...

More later.

Return of the Bloodwork of DOOOOOOOOOOOM

Well, once again I wasted a lot of perfectly good worry over Not Much. As expected, my cholesterol levels sucked right out loud. Total 249, HDL 36, LDL 164, VLDL 50, and Triglycerides 248. (Altho considering that before WLS my total was over 300 and triglycerides were so high they couldn't be calculated, I'm not displeased.) That's on diet and fish oil.

Dr. Eubanks is Not A Happy Camper. She's more worried over it than I am -- I figure everyone has to die of something. Having looked the Reaper in the face for about 3 weeks when I had the wound infection, I'm not so scared of him anymore, especially since I don't have so much to live for now as I did before. Or maybe I'm not as attached to earthly stuff anymore. Shrug. Suffice to say I'm not afraid to die, just hope it doesn't hurt too bad.

Here's the rest of my bloodwork:

Glucose 101
BUN 19
Creatinine 1.0
BUN/creat ratio 19
NA 140
K 4.0
Cl 104
CO2 27
Ca 8.7
Total Protein 6.8
Albumin 3.5
Globulin 3.3
Albumin/Globulin ratio 1.1
AST/SGOT 22
ALT/SGPT 11
Alkaline Phosphatase 96
Total bilirubin 0.8
HbA1c 6.2
B12 >2000

The B12 was high because I'd had my monthly shot the night before. Dr. wanted to not give me the B12 for 3 months, I told her NO. I get worn out when I miss it for 2 weeks, and she wants to take it away for 3 months??? I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. (FYI, gastric bypass patients lose the part of the stomach that can extract B12 from food, so we become chronically deficient in B12 after a certain amount of time. Sublingual B12 tabs work for a while, but eventually most of us have to go to monthly injections. B12 deficiency isn't anything to laugh at, go look it up.)

I'm a little concerned about the protein work -- my total protein is on the low side, albumin is at the absolute low side of normal, globulin is normal, and my a/g ratio is low. More than likely this just indicates I'm not taking in enough protein, which I'll admit to. I often skip lunch altogether, just forget to eat it. I guess I'll have to start being really good about my protein again. Protein shake for breakfast and lunch from now on.

My liver tests are a bit worrisome too, at least to me -- AST is normal, ALT is on the low side, and alkaline phosphatase is knocking on the high side of the limit. Total bilirubin is dead normal. Probably means I have some gall stones raising the ALP, so I can imagine a gall bladder removal in my future at some point. Another side effect of WLS.

The upshot is that she tried to get me on the bile sequestrants, but I'm really opposed to that -- my farts are horrible enough as it is, and bile sequestrants can make that worse as well as cause constipation. I'd have to just move out of the house, because Mike and Patrick wouldn't be able to take it. So she put me on Lopid, or gemfibrozil. It's supposed to lower your triglycerides. I get tested again in 6 weeks, hopefully it will have worked enough to get her off my back about my cholesterol. At this point, I could give a bloated rodent's rectum about my cholesterol. Genetics are genetics -- if I eat right and exercise (as I do), my genetics will take care of themselves. Some of the drugs they put you on are worse than the possible diseases they're trying to prevent.... I don't even have heart disease....

And my blood pressure was up, because I was freaking over my blood work. Feh.