Strange blood results - could I have been given someone else's results?

12-04-2014, 01:15 PM

Hi,
I went to the doctor just over a week ago as I had been feeling very tired and run down and struggling with my triathlon training. I thought my thyroid might be the problem. The doctor ordered some blood tests and off I went. Thyroid was fine but ferritin came back as 5, haemoglobin as 102 and hct, mcv and mch also low. The doctor said she didn't know how I could get out of bed and function, never mind train.

I was pretty worried and decided to go to see a sports doctor to find out what that meant for my training and my goals for the season. He ordered some more blood tests as he was concerned about B12. B12 came back normal but my ferritin came back as 36 and my haemoglobin as 111. The doctor was a bit puzzled as this seems like quite a huge increase in only days of eating red meat and taking iron pills. What was even more curious was that my iron level came back pretty high (46) and my iron saturation at 62%. The doctor has blamed it all on a virus (as I tested positive for previous Epistein Barr) and has told me to rest to recover and keep taking the iron pills (even though my iron came back high).

This all seems very, very strange to me. I was thinking that maybe I should see another doctor and show them both results but I might look crazy going to three different doctors! I know no one here is a doctor but what do you think? Has anyone had a similar experience?

12-06-2014, 02:10 AM

I'd go to another doctor in about a week. If your iron is normal you shouldn't take iron as it can cause problems building up. A few weeks should be ok but I wouldn't do it for months without getting rechecked. It is a really huge difference...

12-06-2014, 08:45 AM

Lab errors do occur sometimes. I would call the lab director, ask them to review your results, and rerun the tests if they still have your serum. They should be able to track down any errors, mislabeling of tubes, etc. I agree that a ferritin doesn't go from 5 to 36 in a week of iron pills, so worse case scenario, you may have to get blood redrawn and test repeated. The EBV explanation makes no sense to me, and the lab director may let you get redrawn without seeing a new Dr. just to eliminate the error possibility.

Strange blood results - could I have been given someone else's results?

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