Wbc

So at least once a month my wbc is in the 14-15 range and I don't feel that good or sometimes I feel fine my dr told me it's because I don't have a spleen my numbers fluctuate. Has anyone heard of this? Or have the same problem?

Sometimes I feel like he just doesn't want to look into anything

I have seen something similar with my mother. She had her spleen out last year as a part of cancer treatment and since then has had mildly elevated WBC counts from tiem to time. It seems that the reaction of doctors to an elevated WBC count after splenectomy varies depending on the reason for removing the spleen. A literature search in Pubmed using the keyphrase "wbc count after splenectomy" produces some interesting articles on the subject.

Also bear in mind that WBC values rise during and after infection. In other words, you may be feeling bad due to mild infection, which in turn could raise your WBC. I hope you can convince your doctor to explain what is going on with you. There may be nothing to look into here, but he should tell you why the elevated WBC is not clinically significant.

www.aafp.org/afp/2000/1101/p2053.html
Splenectomy causes a transient leukocytosis [elevated WBC] that lasts for weeks to months.

archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=212767
Leukocytosis After Posttraumatic Splenectomy - A Physiologic Event or Sign of Sepsis?
Comments:
The phenomenon of temporary leukocytosis following splenectomy has been well known for many decades as a physiologic response to the removal of the spleen.⁸ Ironically, leukocytosis is also a prominent finding of postoperative sepsis, a common and much feared complication of splenectomy. Therefore, confusion exists as to whether postsplenectomy leukocytosis should be considered a normal finding or a warning sign mandating treatment.

Previous reports have shown a difference in the magnitude and persistence of leukocytosis between patients with and without sepsis after splenectomy. Sekikawa and Shatney³ found that from the 6th to the 10th postoperative day, most patients with sepsis had leukocyte counts greater than 20 × 10³/µL vs patients without sepsis with counts less than 17 × 10³/µL. Similarly, Rutherford et al¹⁰ suggested that a leukocyte count greater than 20 × 10³/µL after the 10th postoperative day should initiate a vigorous search for infection. One could argue that the significance of leukocytosis should be determined much earlier than the 10th postoperative day; by then, sepsis is usually overt and the chance for early treatment is lost.

In our study, we tried to determine the earliest postoperative day that a specific WBC predicts the development of sepsis. A WBC greater than 15 × 10³/µL at and after the fifth postoperative day emerged as a reliable predictor of sepsis. Our findings are in agreement with those of Horowitz et al,⁹ who found that following posttraumatic splenectomy, 18 infected patients had a WBC greater than 16 × 10³/µL compared with 24 noninfected patients with a WBC less than 16 × 10³/µL.

Searched using Google Scholar scholar.google.com search terms: elevated leukocyte splenectomy

Keli:

I wouldn't worry about it. Your doctor will know if it is a problem. Counts can be off on the reference range and still be okay, like platelets. You know that 80k is not normal on the reference range, but you also know that it's not a serious problem. Medications such as steroids can also cause the white count to go up.

More than likely, it's because you don't have a spleen and your body is compensating it's immune response with higher white counts. Mine are always low and the rest of the CBC is all over the place. I once had lymphocytes so high they were flagged as critical. It was monitored for a few weeks and eventually went back down.