Update July 2008

This month has been okay. The good news is that her knee is doing great. Still no swelling and it is definitely not bothering her. The bad news is that her ankle and elbow are starting to swell again and they seem to be bothering her. She is limping on her ankle every now and then. She still seems to be in good spirits and is not crying all of the time like she used to. We had her blood work drawn again and the results were not good. Her sed rate is the highest it has ever been. At her Dr’s appointment he seemed surprised that there were no other joints bothering her because of her high sed rate. As of right now, we are going to increase the naproxen and not change anything else unless she starts to get worse. We are all looking forward to going on a much needed vacation next month. I can't wait to take the kids to the beach and just hang out with them by the pool. They both love the water so Im sure they will have fun. Our next Dr's appointment is in September. This is Ayla's current lab work.
sed rate 62 normal is 0-20
hemoglobin 10.3 normal is 11.2-16.0
hematocrit 31.7 normal is 33.6-48.0
platelet count 608 normal is 120-450
The sedimentation rate (sed rate) blood test measures how quickly red blood cells (erythrocytes) settle in a test tube in one hour. The more red cells that fall to the bottom of the test tube in one hour, the higher the sed rate.
When inflammation is present in the body, certain proteins cause red blood cells to stick together and fall more quickly than normal to the bottom of the tube. These proteins are produced by the liver and the immune system under many abnormal conditions, such as an infection, an autoimmune disease, or cancer