Has anyone heard of this?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Has anyone heard of this?
9
Wed, 01-23-2008 - 12:28pm

I went in to get my lab work done for my next appointment with my endo the other day. I habitually check the list of tests on the referral to see if it needs to be a fasting test (fasting serum glucose, lipid panel, etc) or not so I can plan things out. The referral had the usual A1C and my TSH (I'm on meds for hypothyroid) but then it had two I didn't recognize so I went and hunted them up online:

troponin-t made sense - it checks for elevated levels of an enzyme that is related to increased heart attack risk

the other is what had me puzzled: quantiferon-TB ELISA. Everything I read said it was a test for tuberculosis (which makes sense with the "TB" in the name) but I couldn't figure out why she was requesting that test - until I found a website that indicated that diabetes is a risk factor for TB. Who knew? Any of you ever heard about this one? I already knew about the cardiovascular risks but TB? That was a bit of really new information that I'd never heard about diabetes.

--Deb

Avatar for cl_coldfingers
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 01-23-2008 - 12:35pm
No, I never heard of it Deb.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 01-23-2008 - 4:26pm

I don't think so - MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus), polio, and a few others depending on when you were born but I don't think tuberculosis is a standard vaccination. They do the skin tests when you're a kid but that's not a vaccination, that just tests to see if you have been in contact with it/have it.

Seemed kind of weird to me too but then I remembered that there seem to have been several high profile cases of resistant strains of TB in the news over the last year or so. So maybe it's starting to rear its head again...

--Deb

Avatar for cl_coldfingers
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 01-23-2008 - 4:55pm

Actually, I thought more about it after I posted and it was the tests we had done at school when I was a kid.


Avatar for 2sweet02
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Thu, 01-24-2008 - 10:26pm
I hate to point this out, but your Dr. might know about active TB cases in your county.

2sweet02

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 01-24-2008 - 10:51pm

Deb,


I haven't heard of this and I think if I saw this on my lab slip I would ask my doctor what she wanted this before I would agree to have it done. I would be especially concerned if I was asymptomatic! I will ask my sister (Harriette or cl-buglady2) and see what she knows about this. Since you may not recognize my sister's name, she is a nurse epidemiologist, hence a bug lady!



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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Tue, 02-05-2008 - 1:16pm

Okay - so I got the TSH and A1C results back but not the other two...My next dr appointment is this coming Monday. So, I called customer service for the lab where the blood was drawn and the very helpful person there pulled the actual physical referral form. She said only those two (TSH and A1C) were requested. I said "What about down there on the lower lefthand side, typed in, there are two other tests" She said, "Yes, I see that but the doctor didn't indicate they are to be done, those are apparently things that are used often by this office so they are preprinted onto the form. The doctor has to indicate that they are to be done." I had *never* seen these before (and I thoroughly check every referral form, have to be able to plan out things if it's a test that requires an 8 or 12 hour fasting blood test, like the full lipid panel) so it had me nervous but apparently the two tests I got results on are all that was needed/required. And both of those are excellent (A1C was 5.7!!)

--Deb

Avatar for cl_coldfingers
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 02-05-2008 - 2:25pm

LOL


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Tue, 02-05-2008 - 2:46pm

Yeah, I'm guessing that either it got added since the last time OR they grabbed a different form than usual to fill out - my endo shares office space with a cardiologist so maybe they grabbed something from the wrong stack. Anyhow, now I'll know to check it more closely before getting nervous. Also, this was a form that got mailed to me because "we" forgot - I just paid the copay and left last time, no forms or anything in hand. It was only later on that evening when I couldn't find the lab referral that I realized I didn't have one. So I called them the next time they had office hours and they mailed the form to me.

--Deb

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 02-06-2008 - 12:06am

Deb,


Thanks for getting back to me and congratulations on your wonderful A1C reading. I really couldn't understand why the TB test would be run on you and would certainly hope that the physician would explain