So Jon had lab work done yesterday (9/28). They were supposed to be doing a fasting glucose and checking his vitamin levels. He had them drawn at about 9:30 in the morning. Mid afternoon he received a call from the doctor’s office stating “All your labs were normal.”
Unfortunately I’ve learned that we’re not always given correct information, and you have to dig a little deeper. Jon was on the phone with me pecking in his ear with questions :) I said what were the exact numbers? How are results even back to the doctor’s office within hours of it being done?
Commence. Complete. Confusion. She didn’t know how to read the results, she just called to say they’re fine. There was no vitamin levels checked. We push for answers, they say they don’t know. Jon insisted there were vitamin levels ordered on his lab slip (shame on me for not looking at it this ONE time). So he said we’ll give them a few days to come back and see what happens (remember, this was literally like 5 hours after they were drawn!).
Fast forward to today. I received a call from the nurse. Jon was outside watching Riley color with sidewalk chalk (yay for being outside!!) in between rain showers. I said I’ll take the message. She said that his results were low. ((Wait -- didn’t you say they were normal yesterday?! Glad I care enough to ask questions)) So I said okay, what were the actual readings. Again, commence confusion. She FINALLY was able to tell me the following.
Hemoglobin A1C results were within range, but on the lower level at 4.9. This apparently is a test to see the average sugar in the blood over a period of time. This would explain periods of blood sugar readings in the 40’s....
His Potassium is within range at 4.4 (3.5 - 5.3). I don’t know what that last reading was.
His Vitamin D.... I want to start by saying he is currently taking 1,000 i.u. daily, and a 50,000 i.u. pill weekly. That’s 57,000 i.u. weekly he has been receiving for 8 weeks. His number has not changed...at all. It still remains at 18. Not good. They have discontinued the daily pills and increased the 50,000 i.u. to twice weekly. Hopefully we will see some improvement soon.
His Vitamin B12... she couldn’t find a result for that one. She said maybe it didn’t come back yet or maybe it wasn’t done. She didn’t know. So we’ll call on Monday morning to see if we have that result yet. If not, I’ll have to insist that we have an order for it.
I don’t know what this means in the big picture, but it seems he has a serious problem absorbing his vitamins. I’m REALLY anxious to know what his B12 is and whether or not it has improved. It’s good that they’re increasing his Vit D dosages, but does anyone sit back and try to find WHY they’re low instead of just medicating? No. THAT’S why Jon doesn’t get any better. Doctor’s just want to treat his symptoms instead of the cause. Extremely frustrating.
