Very high CRP

[marymcdowell5]

My husband, aged 68, had a mild heart attack last April. Nothing was done after two days in the hospital. He took a beta blocker and an ACE inhibitor for about three months and since then takes nothing but one baby aspirin, in addition to the Pauling therapy. He's been pretty good about taking the vitamin c and lysine, about 8 grams of C and 3 grams of lysine, plus 500 mg of proline. Last summer his CRP decreased from 2.91 to .70 after about three months on the Pauling therapy. He just happened to have had the CRP done before the heart attack.
Yesterday he got his blood work back for his annual physical and his CRP was 10.1. Everything else was normal, and cholesterol was down from 246 to about 200.
I am concerned about this sudden rise in CRP--any thoughts from anyone? I can't think of anything in his life that has changed. He works out three times a week and recently started doing interval training in addition to that.

[exitium]

Hopefully one of the docs will chime in but if he recently added in some interval training that very well could be the cause of the CRP increase. When it comes to exercise there seem to be a lot of variables in regards to how CRP is affected.

http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.a ... id=1136616

[eDOC]

Did the docs perform an angio or a CT angio, (don't think so). How is BP with ACE & beta blockers? Does he have a dry hacking cough?

[marymcdowell5]

Sorry it took me so long to see the replies. After I posted about the CRP I gave a lot of thought to what might be different and it suddenly occurred to me that my husband had a cold the day the blood was drawn. Googled this and found that this was probably the reason for the elevated reading. Apparently some people are advocating using the CRP to determine how bad a respiratory infection or flu might be.

[eDOC]

Could be but my thoughts differ, a cold or a resp inf. cannot give that a high a CRP. Would advice you to repeat once he is off the cold/resp inf.

[eDOC]

Clinically a CRP of 10 or 10 plus I see in cases suffering from Pneumonia, Pul TB not from cold. Google is good learning tool, but over the years have seen around the globe, the habit of self diagnosis & self medication thanks to the net. When they come to me are messed up and don't know where to start.....just my thoughts!

[exitium]

Clinically a CRP of 10 or 10 plus I see in cases suffering from Pneumonia, Pul TB not from cold. Google is good learning tool, but over the years have seen around the globe, the habit of self diagnosis & self medication thanks to the net. When they come to me are messed up and don't know where to start.....just my thoughts!

eDOC, you are clearly an intelligent and caring doctor and I totally understand where you are coming from in your comment above. At the same time however you have to realize for the non-medical professional often times google and self diagnosis and treatment (unless of course there is an acute injury) is often less time consuming, less expensive and more productive than seeing a doctor. Decades of experience is hard to beat but over the years I have gone to the doctors for a variety of issues and to be honest about 20% of the time has it been effective.

Many people resort to self treatment because they cant find a doc who will listen and actually help them. Others simply get tired of docs throwing prescription drugs at them, hiding one symptom and giving them another. Trying to find a doc as knowledgeable and caring as you can be a very difficult task.

[marymcdowell5]

I think I will suggest that he get another CRP reading, but here is the study I looked at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1326064/. It says that 26 out of 41 in the study with upper respiratory infections had a CRP >10 during the first week.