Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion Helpful Tips Sedimentation Rate

What is normal for a sed rate? What is the sed rate of your average AS patient?

Craig

i'm always curious to see what others say, my sed rates (and crp) are both consistently between 5 and 10, considered "normal" by the labs and docs. what i see that to mean is that i do indeed have "inflammation", just "mild" as far as the health community is concerned, just wish my body got the memo

A normal sed rate is below 20. A normal CRP is below 5. My doc says the CRP is a better measure but both are helpful.

At my worst, my CRP hit 110 but I was very ill at that point, could barely move around and the pain was horrific. My sed rate was around 95 at that time. They've been coming down slowly since I've been on prednisone and methotrexate and now are in the low forties. It seems like I still have a fair way to go before I've got the inflammation fully under control.

I have RA, not AS, but it makes little difference in terms of inflammation - both are inflammatory arthritises.

My rheumatologist told me mine was normal but didn't tell me the number. I was just curious. I believe 15 and under is normal for a male.

Hey Wendy! 95??????????????? Wow!

My doc was worried about my organs - heart, kidney etc. when it was that high. It wasn't just my joints.

I found a 20 year study of women who had rheumatoid arthritis prior to the more aggressive approach that is used today. During that period, the standard treatment was to save the more aggressive drugs like methotrexate until later (there were no biologics) - the theory being that this was a lifetime disabling disease and the doctors needed to "save something for later". I can't remember the precise numbers and don't have the study in front of me but, if my memory is right, approximately 30% of these mostly young women at the start of the 20 years, were dead and most of the others were severely disabled. The study shifted the thinking to one of aggressively treating the disease at onset.

I went searching for the cause of death because I couldn't see why the mortality rate for RA was so much higher than in the general population. It turned out that most of the deaths were due to "cardiovascular incidents" - i.e. heart attacks and strokes. It seems that high levels of inflammation can attack the lining of arteries (as well as the heart and other organs) and clouds of fat cells are released into the arteries provoking heart attacks and strokes.

It became clear that getting inflammation levels down is crucial to minimize this kind of serious complication. That was why I was willing to go back on prednisone despite my fear of it.

Also, reference range for each test will vary (probably only slightly) by lab. I also noticed on the CRP tests that I've had done the unit of measure was different between two different labs. Therefore lab A may have a reading of 5, but lab B may use a different unit of measure providing a reading of 50. Same result, but different reporting unit of measure.

Thanks for the tip, Jay!!

Oh my! Sending you a big Christmas hug!!

Craig

Thanks, Craig. I'm doing way better now than I was six months ago so I'm hopeful that I can get this sucker under control!