OP
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Had a long discussion with the Vet and he was not concerned for a few reasons. First, the Lymphocytes were very good and the reactive Lymphocytes, which is a sub group to that is not supported by any condition or symptom that Nike is experiencing. He went through a number of the other tests and how their readings ruled out things like fungus or other bacterial stuff causing the high reading. Then there is the numeric reading in itself which according to him is not yet supported with avian data and that the current ranges are just a guess off the mean. He left a voicemail, partially quoted next, and then I called him back to discuss.
"We are sending out Nike's blood to help create data sets to figure out what to include in the reports and unfortunately reactive lymphocytes in birds are some of the most hard cells actually read in terms of the morphology and can a lot of times look like a monocyte. That being said reactive lymphocytes in general are secondary to some sort of antigenic stimulation and that can be allergies, food allergies, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and a number of things and since everything else looks normal, I'm not sure that we would be able to track down what it's reactive to and second, I'm not super convinced that that's a significant finding given the very normal lymphocytes reading"
During my phone discussion he kept going back to the good lymphocytes reading, Nike's good condition and the fact that they don't really know enough about avian blood tests to definitively set a range.
The discussion reminded me of one I've had over the last few months, and about $3k later, because my dog suddenly tested in stage 4 renal failure but other than drinking a bit more than normal, acts like a puppy and is gaining weight etc. Anyway, a vet friend said to me, "treat the patient, not the numbers" meaning while the numbers say Stage 4 he's obviously doing much better than that so treat him accordingly. And we are and his numbers are getting better as is his symptom and he's gaining weight )he lost a pound on the kidney diet so I switched him to DR. Harvey's)
I then told my avian vet that I wasn't concerned about money and asked when should we test again. He again was adamant that he had nothing to go on and thought that absent any symptoms we should do it again next year.
Being that I only give her the best and I am in tune with how she is doing I feel I'll be on top of any indication that something is not right and so I'm OK with his recommendation, especially as he has recently become the first AVMA quadrupled-board certified specialist in the world.
"We are sending out Nike's blood to help create data sets to figure out what to include in the reports and unfortunately reactive lymphocytes in birds are some of the most hard cells actually read in terms of the morphology and can a lot of times look like a monocyte. That being said reactive lymphocytes in general are secondary to some sort of antigenic stimulation and that can be allergies, food allergies, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and a number of things and since everything else looks normal, I'm not sure that we would be able to track down what it's reactive to and second, I'm not super convinced that that's a significant finding given the very normal lymphocytes reading"
During my phone discussion he kept going back to the good lymphocytes reading, Nike's good condition and the fact that they don't really know enough about avian blood tests to definitively set a range.
The discussion reminded me of one I've had over the last few months, and about $3k later, because my dog suddenly tested in stage 4 renal failure but other than drinking a bit more than normal, acts like a puppy and is gaining weight etc. Anyway, a vet friend said to me, "treat the patient, not the numbers" meaning while the numbers say Stage 4 he's obviously doing much better than that so treat him accordingly. And we are and his numbers are getting better as is his symptom and he's gaining weight )he lost a pound on the kidney diet so I switched him to DR. Harvey's)
I then told my avian vet that I wasn't concerned about money and asked when should we test again. He again was adamant that he had nothing to go on and thought that absent any symptoms we should do it again next year.
Being that I only give her the best and I am in tune with how she is doing I feel I'll be on top of any indication that something is not right and so I'm OK with his recommendation, especially as he has recently become the first AVMA quadrupled-board certified specialist in the world.
