What do lab results indicate?

January 31, 2012 By

DEAR DR. GOTT: Our daughter, age seven, is high functioning with Down syndrome and celiac disease. She is 42 ½ inches tall, 53 pounds and her BP is 105/71. She was born one month early with two holes in her heart which healed on their own by age 18 months. She has only been ill with a cold three times in all her seven years.

We were having her CBCs run annually until last year when we were told to run them every six months; but, as of latest report, we have been told that blood work now needs to be done every three months. Our biggest concern is leukemia; however, I have been reading that her results can point to other things. Below is a list of concerns, supplements and blood work results. Could you please let me know if you see any red flags or if you have any concerns you think we should address and who we should talk to (her regular doctor or a hematologist)?
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Daily Column, Leading Letter Tagged With: , ,

Can aspirin cause bruising?

June 24, 2010 By

DEAR DR. GOTT: I am a 66-year-old female in good health. I have been on an 81 milligram aspirin a day for the last six years. I had a pacemaker inserted in 2007, owing to an electrical problem in my heart. Since then, I have had a problem I attribute to the aspirin, but I’m not sure that’s the culprit. I have blood that pools right under the skin on the lower part of my arms. The blood is very dark — almost black — and sometimes a bit raised. It takes from three to four weeks to fade away, and when it does fade, it leaves a brown spot where it was. I don’t have to hit or scrape my arm. The blood just appears. Right now, I have four large spots on my right arm near the wrist. They are most unsightly, and I have taken to covering them with Band-Aids, but then people ask me what happened to my arm. The only way to hide them would be to wear a long-sleeved blouse all the time. Since I live in Louisiana, where the summers are steamy, I just could not do that.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Daily Column, Leading Letter Tagged With: , , ,