Elevated white count??!


Question: Elevated white count!?!?
A friend of mine took his 7 month old son to the ER with what he thought was just an ear infection!. They did some blood work and it turned out that the baby's blood white count was over 2,000!. What is a "normal" white count and what could possibly be causing this in this baby!? Just HOW elevated is this!?Www@Answer-Health@Com


Answers:
You probably mean over 20,000!.

Commonly, WBC counts can be elevated in the setting of infection, inflammation, physiologic stress or medication use!. An example of physiologic stress is vomiting!. A medication that raises the white count is prednisone!.

The WBC count gives very little if no information regarding the presence or severity of acute infection!. It is an adjunctive test that must be considered in the context of everything else that is happening with the patient!. It is often over ordered, over analyzed and over interpreted!.

That being said, what is importent is the child's clinical appearance (sick or healthy), symptoms (earache, fever) and response to treatment, if any is given!. The white count has no predictive value in saying how bad the ear infection is or how the infection will respond to treatment!.

The vast majority of patients can be treated safely and correctly without the white count ever being known!. In the acute care setting (doctor's visit or ER visit), the only thing a white count is good for is to diagnosis leukemia or neutropenia!. For everything else it is a number and doctors shouldn't treat numbers, they should treat patients!.

Www@Answer-Health@Com

The WBC count is used to determine the presence of an infection or leukemia!. It is also used to help monitor the body



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