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- Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:29 am
hi 26 year old male, i just received a call from my doctor teling me my blood tests recently have showed higher levels of iron and liver count slightly high also my blood count is almost over the normal, he said he has referred me to haematology can u tell me what they may be searching for. previous diagnosis severe ousuphagagitis, glandular fever, testicle torsion, and non epileptic myoclonus
| John Kenyon, CNA
- Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:21 am
The most likely thing the doctor wants a hematologist to rule out (or in) would be
iron overload (hemochromatosis), a condition where the patient has either ingested too much in the way of iron supplements or has a disorder which causes overly high levels of iron in the blood. This is actually a lot more of a problem then "iron poor blood" and can lead to liver and kidney damage and increase the risk of heart disease. If it's caused by the taking of iron supplements it is easy to correct (stop taking the supplements), but usually the underlying condition is already there in these cases.
If you are diagnosed with this problem you will likely have to have blood drawn on a regular basis (like donating, except the blood can't be used to replace whole blood because of the high iron content). Once the levels are normalized, periodic phlebotomy (drawing of blood to keep down the excess iron and red cell levels) is usually necessary.
Hopefully this is not the case, but if it is, at least you can know there is a treatment for the disorder, which otherwise could be very dangerous.
Hopefully this answers your question and equally hopefully everything turns out to be normal.