IMTP CONFUSION ON BLOOD COUNTS

[DW]

Hello everyone - I am so sorry to bother you again but I am really really worried at the moment and am not sure if my worries are justified.

Harley has been bobbing around on the 7.5mg  -  10mg  EOD dose of Preds.      We have tried to lower them over the past weeks but his platelet count has fluctuated quite a bit and we are currently on 10mg EOD plus the 25mg Aza EOD as well.

Because of faulty euqipment/problems on the Vet's own machine, we were getting elevated readings and so, some weeks back, we decided that all bloods would be sent off to the Lab for analysis.  The Vet also sends slides off too.
During the middle of February, when he was on 7.5mg EOD his count dropped to 118 and he was put up to 10mg EOD - although the did say that there had been clumping.  I'm sorry, I know they will have told me what the actual manual reading would have been but for some annoying reason I haven't kept a note of it.
He was tested again  a week later and again, I asked for two readings (one from the Vet's machine which gave 211).  The Lab gave 125 but said that there had been clumping and therefore did a manual count from the slide.  They didn't give a 'true' count but said that something called the h.p. field  was 3 - 8  and therefore this reading would be higher and they weren't concerned but should maintain the 10mg Preds.
We did another test on Monday and the initial figure of 107 was given but this time they said that the h.p. field was 8 and that the calculation they use to convert manual readings would return a count of around 250.

Unfortunately, my Vet wasn't in when the Lab phoned through the results and she is going to phone them to check their calculation and come back with a figure that we can(I can) relate to.

I am utterly confused by all this....why does it have to be so complicated and what does this mean.   
Should I be really concerned that the initial count had dropped from last week to 107 from the week before 125? (disallowing for manual count).

Gwyneth

[Jo CIMDA]

Hi Gwyneth

I hope Harley is continuing to be well in himself and this week's blood test clarifies the situation.  I think the confusion is due to poor operator technique resulting in damaged samples. 
Jo