high hemoglobin

Hi everyone I was wondering if you can tell me what,if anything, it means if you have a high hemoglobin count. I have a friend at work that also had weight loss surgery and has been having some anemia type symptoms have high hemoglobin on her recent blood test so I am trying to do some research for her. She is only a couple years out of her surgery and after the recent problems with my doctors ignoring my signs I am helping her look at her results to make sure they are doing all the tests they need to so that she does not have similar problems.

Her Red blood cell count was 5.21 (normal = 3.8 - 5.10) --> high
hemoglobin = 16.3 (n = 11.7-15.5) --> high
hematocrit = 49.4 (n = 35 - 45) --> high

ferritin = 21 (n = 15 - 500)
B12 = 274 (n= 200 - 1100)
Hemoglobin ALC = 5.5 (n = < 6.0 for non diabetic) --> high...can anyone tell me what this #/reading is???

iron total = 98 (n = 40 - 450)
iron binding capacity = 461 (n = 250 - 450) --> high
%saturation = 21 (n = 15 - 50 %)

I'm going to do some internet searching for her but any experience anyone could offer would help. It's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from what most of us deal with but I thought in all of your research maybe you had came accross it. She is the same blood type as me...don't know why they couldn't just take it from her and put it in me and then we would be fine. I told her to go donate some and she probably wouldn't be on the high end!

Originally Posted by MandyPandy

Hi everyone I was wondering if you can tell me what,if anything, it means if you have a high hemoglobin count. I have a friend at work that also had weight loss surgery and has been having some anemia type symptoms have high hemoglobin on her recent blood test so I am trying to do some research for her. She is only a couple years out of her surgery and after the recent problems with my doctors ignoring my signs I am helping her look at her results to make sure they are doing all the tests they need to so that she does not have similar problems.

Her Red blood cell count was 5.21 (normal = 3.8 - 5.10) --> high
hemoglobin = 16.3 (n = 11.7-15.5) --> high
hematocrit = 49.4 (n = 35 - 45) --> high

ferritin = 21 (n = 15 - 500)
B12 = 274 (n= 200 - 1100)
Hemoglobin ALC = 5.5 (n = < 6.0 for non diabetic) --> high...can anyone tell me what this #/reading is???

iron total = 98 (n = 40 - 450)
iron binding capacity = 461 (n = 250 - 450) --> high
%saturation = 21 (n = 15 - 50 %)

I'm going to do some internet searching for her but any experience anyone could offer would help. It's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from what most of us deal with but I thought in all of your research maybe you had came accross it. She is the same blood type as me...don't know why they couldn't just take it from her and put it in me and then we would be fine. I told her to go donate some and she probably wouldn't be on the high end!

If you just had surgery, you hgb can read on the high side. Your ferritin is very low. While you are not anemic, you will become one if you not increase your ferritin levels. Ferritin should be around 70 that is according to my hematologist. My hgb is always high, but I do run a lot, but my ferritin is always going down and requires me to get infusions all the time. What is her platelet levels. Mine alwys are on the high side with decrease ferritin. With your friend having weight loss surgery, she is not absorbing the iron, so she may need to infusions, may want to talk to a hematologist about that.

sorry...just an error posting!

Thanks for the reply - I really appreciate it. My friend had her surgery a couple years ago but from my experience this is generally when u start to have problems. I did not realize that a ferritin of 20 was that low but then again mine was a 1 and I had to get blood transfusions... I'm trying to help her to keep from getting to this point. She is going to her surgeon on Thursday so I will tell her to talk to him about this.

Thanks again for your helpa,
Amanda