Anybody on here had their own blood tested? I used to get mine tested every once in a while when I was heavily into Track & Field. Sometimes nothing exciting showed up, other times there were a few results that were 'off' which could have possibly explained if I was feeling more worn down than usual. For those of you that have, post your results! For those who haven't, have you thought about it? Insurance will cover most of it if you have good insurance, I only pay about $50 to get a complete blood test done showing lots of good stuff!!

My Results (this is from a time when I was feeling quite good):

Name Result Units Reference Range

WBC 9390 /CMM [4000-10,000]
RBC x10^6 5.5 /CUMM [4.4-5.8]
Hemaglobin 17.2 g/dL [13.0-17.0]
Hematocrit 51 % [42-52]

Magnesium 2.2 mg/dL [1.8-2.5]
Sodium 140 mmol/L [133-145]
Potassium 4.4 mmol/L [3.5-5.1]
Calcium 10.1 mg/dL [8.4-10.5]

Glucose 81 mg/dL [70-110]
BUN 25 mg/dL [6-20]
Creatinine 1.2 mg/dL [0.6-1.2]

There's a few other things on the chart but this is the majority of the info.

It looks to me like you might have been dehydrated when you got your blood drawn. Your hemoglobin and hematocrit are to high. The creatinine and BUN, both kidney function indicators, are slightly elevated.

good catch! I decided the same thing after learning more about what each of them means. Especially because of the BUN and Hematocrit results. My creatinine has been on the high side on all my tests (probably due to using creatine during track [although creatine raising creatinine levels is also debatable!]).

I will probably get tested again sometime pretty soon to see if changing from a full-time track decathlete to a cyclist has changed anything.

Well I failed to mention that I'm a medical technologist "lab tech". Creatinine is a byproduct of muscle metabolism so you would probably expect it to be a little elevated after strenuous excercise.

Does is matter if you work out before a blood test? I know you can't eat or drink anything 12 hours prior but will working out at the gym, weights and cardio effect your results? In particular cholesterol, glucose, and others etc?

Thanks for the information.

If he was dehydrated why isnt his K low? You cannot determine if he was dehydrated by looking at those numbers.

It's (I think, I'm not an expert) impossible to say for sure if I was dehydrated or not. However, it does give me reason for the next time I get tested to make 100% sure that I am not dehyrated. BUN and Hematocrit values have been shown to be higher in individuals who are dehydrated.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think some professional cyclists have even blamed a high hematocrit result on dehydration.

nnewton, I talked to one of the cardiac surgeons I work with about about dehydration and high Hct. The amount of intravascular volume you need to lose in order to significantly raise a Hct. is astronomical. Hct. may increae by .01 or so but not much more than that.

A 70 KG person with a Hct. of UCI legal .49 needs to lose more than 200CC of INTRAVASCULAR/BLOOD VOLUME to raise thier Hct. to a UCI illegal .51. It may not sound like much but 200cc intravascular is alot of volume.

I beg to differ. The most common cause of an elevated hemoglobin/hematocrit is dehydration, It is well documented. Also, people with large muscle mass sometimes have slightly elevated creatinines and it is normal for them. With the BUN also slightly elevate I would have to go with dehydration rather than Kidney disease. Potassium is very tightly regulated by the body. You usually don't see abnormal potassium levels unless the patient is really ill. One of the main causes for low potassium is taking diuretics.

beachpedaler, you are more than welcome to beg to differ but the math is the math. I'm just saying it takes alot of fluid lose to raise a persons Hct. up. So much that it would be detrimental to a persons athletic performance if you didnt re-hydratye yourself.

And as I said earlier, from those lab values, you cannot make a determination....

Two weeks ago I had 15 minutes to get a patients Hct. from .18 to .30. How did I do it? I transfused four units of PRBC's (packed red blood cells) and removed 1,500cc's of plasma water at the same time.... I can forward you the mathematical formulas if you'd like.

Miami Jim, hopefully your just a nurses assistant and whomever that cardiac surgeon is, don't let him get near me. Here's a link from the web about hematocrit and dehydration. www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/ analytes/hemoglobin/faq.html

beachpeddler, thanks for the insult. You are obviously missing the point. That link said dehydration leading to an increase in Hct. is often accompanied by electrlyte imbalances. Isnt that what I said?

Heres my quote:

So lets see, I do say dehydration will leads to higher Hct., just like your link, and I do say there will be a decrease in athletic performance. This is due to an electrlyte imbalance, just like your link. Where exactly am I differing from that link?

Dehydration will raise a persons Hct. (I'm not back tracking here) but it absolutley does not increase a persons oxygen carrying capabilites....NOT POSSIBLE therefore there is no increase in performance. PERIOD.

I can, and would be more than willing to throw all of the pertinent formulas for calculating all of this to you, but I dont know what I'm talking about because I'm only a nurses aid. keep diagnosing yourself on the internet and I'll diagnos myself with MD's who know what their talking about and who follow cycling.

And if I may quote you:
So according to your statement a diuretic cause a decreases in intravascular volume (dehydration) and therefore it leads to a low K but in the lab values listed the K is normal so how can the person be dehydrated?

Your reply implies that dehydration does not cause the hematocrit to be elevated. I never said that dehydration will increase your performance. This guy's results would only SUGGEST a slight dehydration, in order for the potassium to be in the abnormal range he would have to be severely dehydrated.

Hello, let me introduce a post as a little disgression between such an interesting discussion about dehydration and hematocrit:

Taking up again the issue of the first post, I would like to comment my GOT and GPT are always slightly above than normal. My case was studied by specialists of internal medicine, and of course, by my sport doctor. Results finally rejected having some disease. The internal doctor said me such a increase in GOT and GPT are derived from the strong exercise.
In fact, I took a break in my training to see if those enzimes started to go down. Certainly , they went down , but remained a bit higher than normal. And after that last blood test, sport doctor recommend me doing vigorous exercise(cycling) for a fortnight and check my blood again right after this period of hard training. Surprisingly, the enzimes remained at the same level as after the break.
I actually go on training and doctor advised me to check those enzimes every year. Because of the circumstances I told you above, he let me keep on training and competing.
I would thank you a lot any suggestions about this issue. Is it possible(and not harmfull) having GOT and GPT slightly above than standard healthy levels?

Thank you again and greetings from Spain;

Lukylukecyclist.

[QUOTE=lukylukecyclist]Hello, let me introduce a post as a little disgression between such an interesting discussion about dehydration and hematocrit:

Taking up again the issue of the first post, I would like to comment my GOT and GPT are always slightly above than normal. My case was studied by specialists of internal medicine, and of course, by my sport doctor. Results finally rejected having some disease. The internal doctor said me such a increase in GOT and GPT are derived from the strong exercise.
In fact, I took a break in my training to see if those enzimes started to go down. Certainly , they went down , but remained a bit higher than normal. And after that last blood test, sport doctor recommend me doing vigorous exercise(cycling) for a fortnight and check my blood again right after this period of hard training. Surprisingly, the enzimes remained at the same level as after the break.
I actually go on training and doctor advised me to check those enzimes every year. Because of the circumstances I told you above, he let me keep on training and competing.
I would thank you a lot any suggestions about this issue. Is it possible(and not harmfull) having GOT and GPT slightly above than standard healthy levels?

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SGOT and SGPT are liver enzymes that are elevate with liver disease. Generally they will be very high levels if you have serious liver problems. In my experience I have seen slightly elevated levels associated with people that drink alcohol, myself included. If you are a drinker, lay off for awhile and see if they go back to normal. If it doesn't go back to normal I would get some follow up testing done. Other tests that could be elevated in liver disease would be bilirubin, LDH, GGT and AFP.

Thank you for replying my post:

I don't have ever drunk. In fact, I don't like alcohol and I never taste it. Therefore there have to be another reason why those enzymes are increased.
Regarding to a possible liver problem, I resulted negative in an hepatitis blood test. I also remember that I used to have my levels of cholesterol a bit higher than healthy levels, the higher i had it was 272, and last years it fluctuates between 190 and 240.
I used to have high CPK. I wonder if such an increase could be related with increases in GOT and GPT. Would it imply that my body doesn't adapt to the exercise? Maybe the internal medicine doctor was right thinking I have my body under a kind of overtraining since many months or years ago. Indeed, that woud be a good answer and i'd prefer that reason than a liver problem.
I would be very greatful to hear new connotations about this
Nice to meet you, overseas cycling partners;
Lukylukecyclist

CPK comes from three different sources, brain, heart muscle and skeletal muscle. You would have to get CPK isoenzymes run to differentiate where the elevated CPK is coming from but it is common to see elevated CPK in somebody that has been doing heavy exercise. If you continue to have elevated liver enzymes you will need further testing to rule out liver disease. You will probably need an MRI and/or a liver biopsy. There are many different kinds of hepatitis. You may have only been tested for hepatitis B. You can also have hepatitis and still test negative for it. There is a window of time where the test is negative while you are in the begining stages. Hopefully there is nothing wrong. Good luck.

Hi beachpedaler,

Do you have any resources on the internet regarding elevated liver enzymes? Is there another member with elevated liver enzymes sources as well? Any additional info about liver function tests for elevated liver enzymes?

A few days ago my blood work came back with slightly elevated SGOT (56) and SGPT(102). This is the second blood test in 6 months with these slightly elevated values. My doctor left a message for me to call on Monday, I suspect for a retest.

I expect this is from strenous exercise. I ride or workout 6 days a week and stared p90x about a week before this most recent blood test. I was fairly sore at the time of both tests.

All my other values are in range, include a very low triglycerides level of 39 and cholesterol of 109, and no other indicators of liver malfunction that I can see.

I'll post back when I find out more.