I have today received a copy of a letter with the results of my recent LP, apart from the O bands, the results of which are apparently “still pending”.
Anyway, I think I managed to establish, thanks to good old Dr Google, that most things are within normal limits.
However, there is one thing I don’t understand and I was wondering if anyone could explain it to me…
“RBC 90”…does anyone have any idea what that means? I assume it means Red Blood Cells, which means this result is way off normal (normal, apparentl,y being 0!). I then thought they may mean this was my red blood cell count from the blood test I had done at the same time, rather than from the CSF, which would make more sense as I know I was low in iron a few months ago and this is, apparently, a very low count.
Of course, I could be barking up the wrong tree entirely, and RBC may stand for something completely different!
If anyone has had LP results and knows what this means and what is normal, then I would really appreciate some clarification.
Hi Purpledot, I am only going by Google, not personal experience, but you’re right that RBC would be red blood cell count (but from the LP, not the blood test). Apparently, a high reading here could be due simply to hitting a blood vessel on the way in, and thus inadvertently contaminating the sample with blood. Although that is a likely explanation, one problem now is that they can’t be sure that’s how it happened. Either way, it’s the O bands that are crucial from the point of view of an MS diagnosis. I don’t think high RBC would tell anything about that one way or the other. If the O band result comes back normal/negative then it could point to something else being wrong, but otherwise it’s probably a simple case of accidental contamination. For what it’s worth, I once had a lab test (not an LP) which tested positive for some yucky condition that made MS look good! I was left wondering how come I’d not already dropped dead. They did the test again, but could find no trace of the reported abnormality. It wasn’t anything that could have cleared up by itself, so the only possible explanation was lab contamination. I later found that particular test yields high rates of false positives, because it’s extremely sensitive to contamination. So it probably wasn’t in my best interests to have had it really, because it delayed my true Dx while they re-checked, and caused me to be VERY scared. So the odd bogus result isn’t that unusual. Tina x
Thank you, Tina, for your reply. You have put my mind at rest that it is certain to be from hitting a blood vessel on the way in…although I would have expected this to be mentioned somewhere in the report if this were the case. Still, what do we know…they’re the experts after all! I must admit, the longer I remain in Limboland, the more paranoid I become, and was actually beginning to consider the possibility that I’d had a brain haemorrhage! Thanks for your voice of reason, Tina xx
If there was any suspicion you were haemorrhaging from anywhere, I can’t think they’d just pop a letter in the post, and leave it at that, pending availability of the remaining results. You would have had an urgent recall.
I can only think it’s not uncommon to see this type of result, and just means you bled a little into the sample. If it’s common, it would also explain why the report doesn’t draw special attention to it, treating it as unexceptional, for this kind of procedure.
I suppose, if you are worried, you could always ring the GP or neuro secretary, requesting clarification. I know you do hear scare stories about NHS incompetence, but it honestly doesn’t seem very likely they’ve ignored a critical finding. They can’t have thought it’s anything dangerous.