a new question about fluctuating labs

January 8, 2012

I posted a while back when I joined and have a new question: has anyone seen

immunoglobulins go way up and down prior to diagnosis?

Brief history is my son - still not diagnosed- was referred to immuno with low

IgG and borderline IgA. (Found that while investigating recurrent pneumonia - 3x

in 6 months, along with a few ear infections and strep throats).

Subsequently he had a normal IgG on repeat labs (that was early or mid November

I think), and they said the first low test may have been lab error. Been in

limbo since then. Since that test, he's had a string of infections and a

possible return to the immunologist has been mentioned.

He finished antibiotics Friday for the second strep since early Dec and Saturday

(yesterday) I had to take him to urgent care because of severe ear pain- and

yes, he has an ear infection. I haven't been able to speak with the pediatrician

yet obviously because it's the weekend, but this seems likely to send us back to

immuno. At urgent care they had three people look at his ear, because " the

antibiotics should still be in his system " .. they could hardly believe it. If I

hadn't seen it myself I'd hardly believe tit either. He is almost 6 and is also

underweight and has GI issues (endoscopy pending in late January). He can't seem

to go more than a couple of weeks without antibiotics; this time he hasn't even

made it 36 hours.

I know we need to continue with all the follow up vaccine titers .....we didn't

complete all the follow up tests once the IG levels came back inside range.

But I can't help but wonder about the IGs- can they go up and down? by a lot?

they were never absent, but were significantly below range, then jumped 300

points to well inside normal range on the repeat test. Maybe it really WAS a

fluke, but I also wondered if maybe they are actually not consistently strong

and that is part of the picture..or maybe we are at an early stage of

dysfunction where they are fluctuating, or something. Has anyone seen anything

like this? are we just totally on the wrong track?

I know I should just be patient with the process..but I'm really having trouble

keeping any kind of perspective here. Ugh.

thanks.

(I have also posted this at the IDF board, sorry if duplicate for anyone)

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