Lab results - looking for opinions [PLEASE READ 1ST POST]

stormysurfer15 said:Hey everyone!

I'm dealing with a major issue. Today I noticed blood clots in my urine, and obviously, it hurts like hell to pee. It was just a few drops, but I have this constant feeling of pressure down there.
I rushed over to my local urgent care clinic to drop off a sample, and here are the results:

Protein: trace amount.
3-5 washed erythrocytes
2-4 fresh erythrocytes
5-8 leukocytes, some squamous epithelium, and bacteria.

Can anyone help me make sense of these results? I know they haven't isolated the specific bacteria yet—I’ll have to go to the hospital for that part—but what's the deal with the erythrocytes, protein, and epithelium?
If anyone knows, any help would be appreciated.🙏

I honestly can't make it until tomorrow afternoon when I see my doctor; the pain is so bad I just want to sit down and cry.

What you can do right now is drink some cranberry juice or tea, or maybe plenty of parsley tea. Take one 400 mg Ibuprofen since it acts as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory; that should dull the symptoms enough to help you limp through until tomorrow. Don't push yourself too hard—just stay warm and rest up until your appointment tomorrow afternoon.

I'm currently on a strict diet, training hard, and taking various supplements, which led to these results. Given how minor these increases are, should I be worried, or is there a logical explanation here?

These values are slightly outside the standard range!

- creatinine 131 umol/L (normal range 79-125)

- bilirubin 21.0 umol/L (normal range 3.0-20.0)

- alkaline phosphatase 59 U/L (normal range 60-142)

- ALT - 67 U/L (normal range 10-48)

If I were a 25-year-old guy,

Those ALT levels and the bilirubin definitely point toward some liver issues, though I can't say for sure about those other two markers.
My brother went through a similar scare where his ALT was elevated, and then his next set of labs looked even worse because his AST and GGT spiked too. It got so bad he actually went in to get tested for Hepatitis B and C, but thankfully, both came back negative. After that, he completely panicked—he quit smoking cold turkey and gave up alcohol entirely, while also taking Silymarin, which eventually helped get things back under control. He used to be in the military and lost a ton of weight while serving, but once he got home, he packed on quite a few pounds, and his internist suggested that rapid weight fluctuation might have played a role in all this. Have you been on any heavy-duty medications over the last year or two?

Do you happen to know what the levels were when they spiked?

Yeah—I’m an athlete, so I'm on certain medications, and my body deals with a fair amount of stress...

First, his ALT shot up to 47, then hit 55, then climbed all the way to 85, and now he just got his latest labs back and it’s right back down to 47—keep in mind his threshold is 33 since he's only 18. His AST was hovering slightly above the limit too, but that’s finally normalized completely. The GGT was also a bit high, but that cleared up the second he stopped grabbing drinks with the guys out on the town. Back when he was in the military, they were feeding them absolute junk and pumping them full of all sorts of stuff; before that, he was on some acne medication, but his levels were totally fine back then, only for this mess to show up a year and a half after he finished the meds. Plus, during his service, he was cleaning toilets every single day without gloves and hygiene standards were pretty much nonexistent, so we’re all sitting here worried he might have picked up some kind of hepatitis. Honestly, nobody even knows the cause right now. He's currently being tested for two other less dangerous, curable types of hepatitis and mono. You might want to try Silymarin; you can find it for about $20, but you should definitely talk to an internist first.

I totally blanked on mentioning that his ultrasound back in the 12th month showed a slightly enlarged liver, though it was honestly almost negligible. But the whole thing kicked off late in October, and we’re still dealing with the fallout today. I can't help but think that since you're an athlete, you're probably slamming a ton of protein, and let's be real—that's not exactly a love letter to your liver, much like pushing your body through intense physical training.

Lisa Scott42 said:I forgot to mention that his ultrasound back in the 12th week showed a slightly enlarged liver, though it was barely noticeable. This whole thing started in late October and still isn't sorted out. I suspect that being an athlete, you're consuming a lot of protein, which isn't exactly easy on the liver—much like intense physical training.

My liver and kidney ultrasounds came back perfectly fine...

Protein intake hits the kidneys way harder than the liver. As for the physical strain—athletes often deal with elevated creatinine levels.

Dennis Alvarez4 said:I'm currently on a strict diet, training hard, and taking several supplements, which is why my numbers came back like this. Are these slight increases a non-issue, or should I actually be worried?

These results are definitely outside the standard range!

- creatinine 131 umol/L (normal range: 79-125)

- bilirubin 21.0 umol/L (normal range: 3.0-20.0)

- alkaline phosphatase 59 U/L (normal range: 60-142)

- ALT - 67 (U/L) (normal range: 10-48)

Creatinine is an indicator of kidney function. Essentially, if it’s elevated, it suggests your kidneys aren't filtering quite as efficiently as they should be.

Susan Williams10 said:Creatinine is an enzyme that acts as a marker for kidney function; if levels are high, it suggests the kidneys aren't filtering properly.

Spot on.

It’s frequently elevated in athletes. Also correct. Look it up.

Can someone make sense of these blood work numbers for me??
PLATELETS 156 L (158-424)—so yeah, they're low.
MPV 11.3 H (6.8-10.4)—which means it's high.
Everything else looks totally fine—white cells, red cells, ESR, all that stuff is within range.
Since MPV stands for mean platelet volume, it feels like there's something weird going on with my platelets. If anyone actually knows what this combo implies, please, for the love of god, let me know!!
thx

brightangler8 said:Can someone make sense of these CBC results for me??
PLATELETS 156 L (158-424) so they're low
MPV 11.3 H (6.8-10.4) so it's high
everything else looks totally fine (WBC, RBC, ESR, etc.)
MPV is platelet volume, so something's up with those platelets. If anyone knows what this actually means, pleaseeeee help me out!!
thx

Honestly, this looks completely normal to me. Everything is fine!

James Watson84 said:Look, those numbers look totally fine to me. Everything checks out!

Thanks for the pep talk, really, but let's be real—this isn't exactly "normal." My platelets are sitting below the standard range, and now my MPV is running high? Something's off.

A low platelet count isn't necessarily cause for alarm... If you re-run the test, you might even see different results... As long as you aren't experiencing any actual symptoms from those "low platelets," there is no need to worry; just live your life normally... After all, we treat people, not just random lab numbers... In my experience, nobody has every single value sitting perfectly within the reference range... everyone is missing something at some point.

Sam Hall15 said:Look, a low platelet count isn't exactly cause for panic... if you run the test again, you’ll probably get different numbers anyway. Unless you’re actually feeling the effects of those "low platelets," just don't sweat it—live your life. Doctors don't treat lab results; they treat people. Truth is, nobody has every single marker sitting perfectly within the "normal" range. Everyone’s got something slightly off somewhere.

Great, thanks for the comfort! 🙏 So I guess I don't need to worry? My other levels look fine, and from what I understand, white blood cell counts and ESR are the big ones since they signal inflammation—meaning something's actually going on. If those were off, that would be a real problem, right?

Can I get some insight from the medical pros here—why on earth would liver enzymes spike if someone isn't dealing with hepatitis, isn't popping any pills, and doesn't touch alcohol? What else is out there that could drive up ALT and AST levels? For instance, could those enzymes be jumping because I’m knocking back about five cups of decaf a day? I heard this crazy rumor that decaf might actually be risky because they use some kind of nasty chemical solvents to strip the caffeine out. To make things even more confusing, I just had a full abdominal ultrasound and everything came back looking perfectly fine...

Well, it really depends on how high those levels were... It’s possible you simply ate something that required a bit more "heavy lifting" from the liver during detoxification.

My liver enzymes were through the roof at first—AST 170, ALT 149, GGT 98...
Hepatitis markers? Negative. Abdominal ultrasound? Totally normal. They actually suspected my gallbladder because I ended up in the ER that night with intense pain right under my ribs, but everything looked fine there. Turns out, it was all my thyroid—severe hyperthyroidism. My hormone levels were off the charts: T3 over 10, T4 at 289, and TSH at 0.005. Now I’m juggling about 16 pills a day plus herbal teas for my liver and thyroid. Basically, in my case, those enzymes spiked because my thyroid was running so fast it started wrecking everything else. Check your pulse... mine sits anywhere from 95 to 130 bpm, so I really have to watch my heart (I think those MCV or MCHV—sorry, I can't remember the exact acronyms—are the ones you mentioned that point to heart muscle damage, mine are just slightly above or below the limit, but I'm not 100% sure on that part). Also, definitely check if you've been taking any medications, since those can spike liver enzymes too. And one more thing... could you be pregnant? That can cause elevations as well.

Nicole Doyle88 said:Check your pulse... mine jumps between 95 and 130 bpm, so I’ve gotta watch my heart. (I think those MCV or MCHV things—sorry, can't remember the acronyms—that you mentioned above point to heart muscle damage since mine are slightly off the charts, but I'm not 100% sure.)

MCV and MCHC have zero to do with your heart muscle. Those are just metrics used to describe red blood cell characteristics.

You make a fair point. I said I wasn't entirely sure, but everything else remains the same. The only thing I managed to dig up online regarding what I mentioned is that, in certain instances, when specific parameters from those two—I can't quite recall which ones—are either too high or too low, it can trigger heart palpitations. That's likely what's happening with me, given my hyperthyroidism.