Date: September 10th, 2024 6:03 PM Author: thriller demanding therapy
had annual physical and bloodwork. HGB was 13.7 (range is 14-18), and WBC is 4.1 (4.5-11). gp then said he's ordering a vitamin test. vitamin text shows serum iron at 60 (65-175) and % saturation at 17% (20-50).
he said i'm slightly anemic and should do a colonoscopy to rule out internal blood loss.
is he right or, or is this CYA defensive medicine?
fwiw, i don't eat much red meat (once every 2 weeks). i told him this and he said only a true vegan diet would make you anemic.
this is an incomplete iron study. I'd need to see a TIBC and a ferritin to distinguish whether you have iron deficiency or anemia of chronic disease. if your ferritin is below 30, then you definitely are iron deficient.
but let's assume you do have iron deficiency anemia. it's very very unlikely to get this from diet alone, regardless of red meat intake. if you drink an abnormal amount of tea, perhaps this could explain it (it can reduce iron absorption). and i'm supposing that you don't have celiac or gastritis or whatever that can readily explain iron deficiency.
so for someone who is otherwise healthy and has no obvious cause of iron deficiency, i would agree with a referral to a GI. i wouldn't call this CYA, it's basically standard of care
this is actually somewhat interesting. your ferritin levels are not what i would expect for iron deficiency. this is an inconclusive result. it could very well be iron deficiency with a confounding elevated ferritin in the setting of chronic inflammation. you could ask for a "soluble transferrin receptor" lab test, which would elucidate if you truly have iron deficiency anemia.
or it could be that you have both iron deficiency anemia *and* anemia of chronic disease/inflammation. you might see this in the setting of occult bleeding and inflammation from inflammatory bowel disease or colon cancer. there is no lab test that can easily determine this scenario, but a serum hepcidin level may help. alternatively, you could opt for a therapeutic trial of iron supplementation -- if iron studies improve, then it was just iron deficiency and nothing else is going on hematologically.
but this won't change management for you. if you have iron deficiency, you need to figure out why, and you'll still end up with an endoscopy.
excuse all the jargon. in short, we can wax poetic about your iron studies all we want, but all roads seem to end in a probe up your ass.
you won't really ever know unless you talk to the people he works with like the GI tech, nurses, and anesthesia
i agree that jew boomer sounds like the better choice here, but i know a couple boomer jew GIs who spend the least amount of time in the colon they can get away with
unfortunately most GI docs cease higher level brain activity as soon as they hit fellowship and just become procedure monkeys. but this is fine as long as they are thorough.
Date: September 11th, 2024 8:35 PM Author: thriller demanding therapy
is the issue that a shitty GI doc is more likely to injure you, or more likely to miss stuff because they're rushing? shouldn't there be a recording of what's inside to make sure everything is covered?
you could ask for a recording but i think they only take pictures
you could ask to remain awake for the exam (which is the standard in Europe where anesthesia is in restricted supply), but i dunno if that would make them more thorough or just freak them out
this seems to suggest 95% of people don't need sedation for a colonoscopy
it would certainly be a more pleasant experience with sedation/anesthesia, but if you're not anxious about it and can tolerate some discomfort, it can be done
there is a risk of perforation but for a screening colonoscopy it's exceedingly low. 1 in 1000-10000
as to whether it's worth the risk, i dunno... i would personally just get it done if i were in your shoes because i've noticed an increased incidence of colorectal malignancies in younger people (see brother luis). you could also have a jewish gut disease like celiac or gastritis that they could find but this would be unlikely without any GI symptoms
Date: September 11th, 2024 8:46 PM Author: thriller demanding therapy
i've had some sort of jewish gut disease at times. like 8 yrs ago, i had incredible stomach pains and eventually a specialist thought it was stomach ulcers and gave me carafate and it made it better. at 2 other times since when i had similar severe stomach pains.
Date: September 18th, 2024 8:20 PM Author: thriller demanding therapy
UPDATE: i had a consult with the GI doc - the jew boomer. he says that the labs arent so deeply concerning since they're just a bit low and the ferritin is normal, and thinks it's premature to do a colonoscopy. he suggested i do a stool test, try to eat more red meat, and repeat the bloodwork in a month. he said that given my age and no family history of colon cancer, and if the stool test is fine and the bloodwork is better in a month, there's a very low probability he'd find anything in a colonoscopy.
he said he's happy to do the colonoscopy if i want, either now or after the stool and repeat bloodwork, but he knows nobody wants them. he said i can do it for peace of mind, but doing it for peace of mind doesn't mean there's a necessary clinical reason to do so.
i told him that my GP said that even one low result from the bloodwork would be concerning and worth testing even if the bloodwork is normal later on -- where it's unexplained why that low result happened. he didn't seem concerned.
he's an old-school boomer solo. i guess he's not under pressure from a big group to crank out procedures.
you think he's wrong? i don't see why he'd be full of shit. seems like he doesn't practice defensive medicine like the rest of them.
Date: September 11th, 2024 9:36 PM Author: 180 feces
Jag, I need help too
My mom passed out in her bathroom for some unknown reason and broke c4 c5 vertebrae with "stable" fractures. After a helicopter flight to a hospital they sent home after 24 hours with a neck brace and a 3 week follow up.
She's 60 years old. This was the 3rd time she has had these fainting episodes in the last couple months and she never had then before. What should we be doing.
man syncope and "dizziness" workups were the bane of my existence
i'd need a LOT more info about her to give a focused answer to this
but basically you need to find out if she's passing out because of her heart, her brain, vasovagal, metabolic (blood glucose etc), or orthostatic hypotension
i can't imagine they didn't thoroughly investigate this stuff, and you don't always uncover an etiology
what kind of doctors was she seen by (other than ortho)
Date: September 11th, 2024 9:49 PM Author: 180 feces
Should we be worried any more about the neck fractures? Should I get a second opinion?
I don't have any of the details because we're just now getting medical records, but what you are saying sounds good and reasonable. The tests from the hospital (MRI, blood work, ECG) were OK, but they did make a referral to a cardiologist. I'm taking her to that Friday.
the problem w discussing ortho is that i'm useless without looking at the imaging myself. need to look at bony anatomy and associated ligaments to determine stability
can you at least tell me what kind of fracture? compression, spinous process avulsion, transverse process, etc?
impossible for me to comment on a teardrop without seeing imaging
assuming it's an extension teardrop fracture, hard collar is the correct treatment the vast majority of the time
but i can't rule out a flexion teardrop fracture, which is a serious injury and needs ortho/neurosurg evaluation. in fact, i can't imagine they wouldn't have been consulted for this
yes that's prolonged. probably due to medications she's on and/or electrolyte derangements. this can be a cause of arrhythmia that can result in syncope
Date: September 11th, 2024 10:00 PM Author: 180 feces
she started taking tirzepatide but stopped, she started that before and if this started. Do you think that could be it? She has stopped completely, last dose was the day before she fell
bundle branch block in isolation doesn't mean anything to me necessarily
bundle branch block plus syncope would have me searching for a electrophysiological (eg arrhythmia) or structural (eg valve stenosis) cardiac cause. absent signs suggestive of another noncardiac etiology of course
i don't have a good answer really. a good primary care is worth their weight in gold but they are diamonds in a rough. as a patient, all you can do is sort for someone who went to a good school/residency. not too recently graduated but not more than 5-10 years out of residency either.. at this point they're probably burnt out and no longer staying up to date
Date: October 31st, 2024 2:25 PM Author: thriller demanding therapy
UPDATE: stool test is negative. GI doc re-ran my labs:
HGB 13.8
ferritin 101
iron total 67
TIBC 350
saturation 19% (low)
GI doc said: the ferritin is normal. the iron is low but normal, and the saturation % is a bit of a red herring because i'm a little high on the TIBC and a little low on iron, which gives a saturation ratio that is abnormal and if my TIBC were lower that ratio would be fine.
he said he doesnt see evidence of iron deficiency, and said the issue is how much more do we chase this for a 40 year old to look for something that may not be there, and he said anything else we do at this point is peace of mind, and he just doesnt think im anemic.
he asked then my next trip to the primary is, and i said in august, and he said just to redo the labs with him in 3-6 months because he wouldnt go a year seeing if there's a problem.
Date: October 31st, 2024 2:49 PM Author: Naked White Trump Supporter
Paragraph XIV. Throughout the period, DEFENDANT was solicited for and provided medical advice on the prestigious but non-medical online platform known as "Auto Admit." On multiple occasions, including dates referenced in Appendix C, the DEFENDANT ....
the first thing i pointed out was that your ferritin levels suggest you don't have iron deficiency. but at the time you *were* anemic, so reasonable to pursue a workup to see why. no reason for you to be anemic at your age. i suggested some labs but postulated that the eventual investigation would involve an endoscopy
now you're not even anemic anymore, so the original result was either just noise or a lab error