My brother has some serious health issues!

[Tyrone Bill]

My younger brother was admitted to the hospital early Tuesday. After several hours in the ER he was admitted to the ICU department. He was vomitting and had severe pain in his lower right back.

The first two times they drew blood, his sugar level was over 500 later they took it for the third time. This time it was 750. He is a type II diabetic. Even on insulin and a no sugar liquid diet they are having trouble controling his sugar.
They also drew blood for other tests. At our local hospital they couldn't do a cholestrol/triglyceride test because of the amount of the unusally high level of fat in his blood sample. They sent it out to a larger neighboring hospital where they had the capabilities to perform the tests. Even there they had a difficult time performing the tests. They finally did come back with the results which shocked his doctor and the nursing staff.
I don't know the breakdown on the cholesterol but his total was 1800. His triglycerides were over 20,000. Yes 20,000!!

His doctor is stumped and cannot figure out how or why it can be so high.

Has anybody ever run across or heard of numbers this high? If so what was causing it. I've never heard of numbers like that.

Oh yea I might add my brother is 55 years old, weighs about 165 pounds and is 5' 8" tall.

[Frank Hagan]

The other hospital probably had the equipment to test the different lipid values separately; when triglycerides are high, the normal formula doesn't work (at a TG value of 20,000, the calculated total cholesterol would be at least 4,000).

I've never heard of this type of thing before. For the pain, they are probably checking for pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas that is sometimes a result of high triglycerides. I have never heard of this kind of super-high triglyceride level. I'll keep your brother in my thoughts and prayers this weekend.

[Tyrone Bill]

Thanks Frank. Numbers that high is a total mystery to me. I'm sure they are testing for pancreatitis.

[Tyrone Bill]

While researching some of the more popular medical websites. I found an article written by a cardiologist on triglycerides and cholesterol. Here's and excerpt from that article.




"We see the worst of the worst in this clinic," Dr. Ruisinger explained. "It's not uncommon for us to see patients with triglyceride levels of 3,000 mg/dL or 4,000 mg/dL. We have two or three patients whose triglyceride levels were 20,000 mg/dL when they came to us. And then we have some patients who have very low HDL cholesterol levels. We have one woman whose HDL reading was zero when she started with us. The patients we see require aggressive treatment, and most are on combination drug therapy."
Causes of Elevated Serum Triglycerides *
Lifestyle factors - Overweight and obesity - Physical inactivity - Cigarette smoking - Excess alcohol intake - High carbohydrate diets (>60% of total energy)
Other diseases - Insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes - Chronic renal failure - Nephrotic syndrome
Certain drugs - Corticosteroids - Protease inhibitors - p-Adrenergic blocking agents - Estrogens Genetic factors

[Artista]

Praying for a complete recovery, Bill.

Kathee

[Frank Hagan]

Bill, did you say in another post that your brother and his fishing buddy were both taken to the hospital? That sounds more like something environmental (unless they were both taken for another reason and they found his lipid levels so high on admission).

[Tyrone Bill]

Bill, did you say in another post that your brother and his fishing buddy were both taken to the hospital?.

I'm sorry Frank I quess the way I worded that was misleading.
"My brother and fishing buddy" was supposed to indicate that he was more than just my brother. He was my fishing buddy too.