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Monday, 3 September 2012

Steven Update

Steven Text me today to say his CRP levels are high and are cause for concern

Measuring your C-reactive protein (CRP) levels can help in assessing your risk for heart disease.
Elevated CRP is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke. Whether CRP actually causes the increased risk or is just a marker for it is still not known - but now we do know that treating people who have high CRP levels with statins can reduce their risk. This fact alone makes measuring CRP worthwhile in many individuals.
CRP is a protein that is released into the bloodstream during periods of inflammation. Since atherosclerosis1 (the process that forms plaques in the arteries) is now thought to be at least partly an inflammatory process, it makes sense that CRP levels might be elevated during periods of active plaque formation, and that high levels of CRP would correlate with cardiovascular events.
CRP is measured using a high sensitivity test (called the hs-CRP blood test). In general, the higher the hs-CRP level, the higher the risk. Levels of hs-CRP below 1 are considered low; levels of 1 - 3 are considered moderately elevated; levels greater than 3 are considered high. Levels greater than 10 are usually only seen with active, obvious inflammatory processes, such as severe infection, major trauma, or chronic inflammatory diseases - these ultra-high levels cannot be used to interpret cardiac risk. Because CRP levels can fluctuate over time, most experts now recommend measuring 2 CRP levels a few weeks apart, and averaging the two values.
Steven's CRP is infection Marker 85which is apparently acceptable.

Steven also had a tooth removed today.

Had a text to say they had run out of his Antibiotic, incredible, he eventually got his antibiotic 10 hours late

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