Hi all...

I spent the day at Mayo Tuesday. Nothing short of horrible, but for now I'm wondering about "C reactive protien". I'm not even sure if I have the name correct. It seems like everytime I have been in the hospital for the last 20 years, I have been told something about my protiens, and never really understood it. I remember asking once, "so are you saying I need to eat more steak, or less steak?"

Anyway my number was 11.1. They said my pouchitis was pretty much cleared up. So that number concerned him. Thinking I may have some sneaky Crohns somewhere lurking in my body. He did not want to "label" me that diagnosis yet. I did have some inflamation on the right side of my pouch, that they just can't figure out, possible an abcess, but the size of it would probably be making me sick if it were infected. There were three things that concerned my doc. The things that concerned me were that I passed out once and threw up twice. Not a good day overall.

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a non-specific test that indicates inflammation when it is elevated. This means that there is inflammation somewhere in your body, but the test does not specify where it is. In that respect it is similar to WSR (Westergren sedimentation rate), which is a much older test.

Elevated CRP is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The actual number of your results is meaningful only when you have the normal baseline number, because normal and abnormal values vary according to the the lab and its testing methods. Plus, a negative result does not mean there is no inflammation.

Also, there are many other serum protein tests you may have had over the years, so I would not assume they were always talking about CRP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-reactive_protein

Like you, I'd be more concerned about your symptoms than the CRP results. However, I will tell you that your results were high (<1 is usually normal).

I had to edit the above, I had the < facing the wrong way before!

Jan

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jan Dollar,

Jan...all I can say is...you rock!

I have never had any indicators of cardiovascular disease or diabetes...interesting...I had no idea. Passed out during my flex sig, threw up twice after the MRI contrast. It was blueberry flavored. I don't think I'll ever eat another blueberry the rest of my life.

Thanks for the info.