CRP numbers up, apparently??

Can anyone help me out with some info on this please? I know that crp numbers are sposed to be low, like under ten or something, and any raising of that number means what exactly?? I havent paid much attention to it over the years because Im generally pretty healthy. Does a higher crp number equal higher amounts of pain? Cos the only numbers in my history I know of were 270 or so when I was diagnosed and hospitalised for a month. In the teens when I was discharged after that month. And now Im told my number is 47. Yes I know Ive got active crohns at present, and I also know I have a high pain tolerance regardless.

Just any info and anecdotal stuff would be good, cheers in advance.

CRP is a measure of inflammation in the body. The higher CRP levels may or may not be related to Crohn's. The number doesn't have to correlate with pain because not all inflammation in the body necessarily manifests itself as pain.

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/c-reactive-protein-crp

how high does CRP get. Mine is 45?

Quoting wikipedia:

Normal concentration in healthy human serum is usually lower than 10 mg/L, slightly increasing with aging. Higher levels are found in late pregnant women, mild inflammation and viral infections (10–40 mg/L), active inflammation, bacterial infection (40–200 mg/L), severe bacterial infections and burns (>200 mg/L).[28]

The acute phase response develops in a wide range of acute and chronic inflammatory conditions like bacterial, viral, or fungal infections; rheumatic and other inflammatory diseases; malignancy; and tissue injury or necrosis.

CrP is a measure of inflammation in the previous 24 hours. A different measure called ESR or Sed Rate measures inflammation over a period of weeks.

In either case, when you want to know if a lab value is in the normal range you need the lab results which show the normal range for that test along with your result.

Different labs use different versions of the same test and may have different normal ranges or may use different units of measurement. Different units of measurement can make one person's result appear low when it's actually high or vice versa.

Gunnhild said:

how high does CRP get. Mine is 45?

Quoting wikipedia:

Normal concentration in healthy human serum is usually lower than 10 mg/L, slightly increasing with aging. Higher levels are found in late pregnant women, mild inflammation and viral infections (10–40 mg/L), active inflammation, bacterial infection (40–200 mg/L), severe bacterial infections and burns (>200 mg/L).[28]

The acute phase response develops in a wide range of acute and chronic inflammatory conditions like bacterial, viral, or fungal infections; rheumatic and other inflammatory diseases; malignancy; and tissue injury or necrosis.

Click to expand...

It varies Gunnhild and does not necessarily equate with the amount of inflammation present. My children are a classic example of that:

My daughter had a ruptured and infarcted bowel with associated peritonitis requiring emergency surgery yet her WCC was 18 and her CRP was normal.

My son had a micro perforation and intact abscess and his WCC was 35 and his CRP was 362.

Dusty. xxx