Is CBC blood test absolutely essential? | Arthritis Information

Hi,

I am taking methotextrate, plaquenil, and prednisone. Money is really tight at home right now, do I absolutely need to have a CBC blood test?

(i know cmp is essential, but what about CBC?)

thanks!

Yes, you do. Your physician will want to guage how the Methotrexate dose is impacting the blood cells.

After all these years on MTX I'm pretty stable and only have blood work done every 3 months because of the MTX. We always run the Liver function tests, the CMP, the CBC, and the ESR. [Personally, I wish we'd dispense with the ESR - total waste for me since I have never ever, even during my worst flares, shown an abnormal reading. I think that just because it's in the Rheumatologists guidelines they feel compelled to run it.]

Yes...you need these tests. Mtx is a hard core med. The blood tests allow a problem to be caught before it gets out of control. I have been on the med since I was a teen and I have had a handful of times where the dosage has needed to be adjusted. It was a pretty small problem due to the frequency of the tests. Things hadn't gotten serious cause the problem was caught so soon.

Also, your dr. probably won't continue to prescribe MTX without the bloodwork. I know when I moved, finding a new rd took time. My current RD would only continue MTX if my bloodwork was faxed to him regularly. It's just to risky not to get the testing....

yes you can checck out someplace like healthcheckusa to see if you can get the bloodwork at a lower price than your regular labPrednisone also puts a damper on your immune system which is already screwed up. Some people develop sceptic joints, meaning they're infected. Personally, if I were the doc (I'm a nurse) I think I could get more info from a CBC than I could any of the usual litany of other tests which are standard for people like us. Does your doc know that you are having trouble with $, if you're having it done through his/her office he/she may be able to wave the fee or at least postpone it, never hurts to ask.Oh man yes

It was my routine CBC that discovered the shutdown of my bone marrow.