If your ESR has been elevated, please share!! IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, then it is time to request copies of your medical report and copies of your surgical and pathological reports, if you haven't already done this.
[]> Clinical Utility of the Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate - The following information is from this article:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/991001ap/1443.html
Use of the ESR as a screening test to identify patients who have serious disease is not supported by the literature.
An extreme elevation of the ESR is strongly associated with serious underlying disease, most often infection, collagen vascular disease or metastatic malignancy. When an increased rate is encountered with no obvious clinical explanation, the physician should repeat the test after an appropriate interval rather than pursue an exhaustive search for occult disease.
The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) determination is a simple and inexpensive laboratory test that is frequently ordered in clinical medicine.1-3 The test measures the distance that erythrocytes have fallen after one hour in a vertical column of anticoagulated blood under the influence of gravity. The basic factors influencing the ESR have been understood since the early part of this century; the amount of fibrinogen in the blood directly correlates with the ESR. The most satisfactory method of performing the test was introduced by Westergren in 1921.1 Although there is an enormous body of literature concerning the ESR, an elevated value remains a nonspecific finding.
Any condition that elevates fibrinogen (e.g., pregnancy, diabetes mellitus, end-stage renal failure, heart disease, collagen vascular diseases, malignancy) may also elevate the ESR.
Reference Ranges for the ESR in Healthy Adults:
Ages under 50 years...Men 0 to 15...Women 0 to 20
Ages over 50 years...Men 0 to 20...Women 0 to 30