Comments on: Extreme Lab Values - What is your “all time best”?

By: Deepthi

Deepthi — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:05:44 +0000

Highest CK 622,000 (survived)
Highest Myoglobin: 400,000

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:31:37 +0000

I’m not actually a doctor, but my potassium was 1.2 when I was admitted in the ER, and I am still alive. I didn’t know there was anything wrong.

By: Pat Brown, RN

Pat Brown, RN — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:00:02 +0000

Highest weight-1267lbs on admit, down to 823 on d/c to a SNF–died the next day from MI.

By: audrey

audrey — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:53:36 +0000

I was on Mag Sulfate and my levels came back at a 27, turns out the nurse drew it from the arm w/ the IV. Recheck was well within normal limits.

By: rogue medic

rogue medic — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:03:33 +0000

Had a patient with a blood pressure of 38/18. Confirmed by my partner. He was unconscious lying in a pool of diarrhea (the patient, not my partner) and he was hypoglycemic, had a bit of alcohol on board. Unresponsive to deep painful stimulus. Bounding radial pulses. Woke up with D50 and his BP returned to normal.

For blood alcohol levels we should break them down into chronic and occasional consumers of alcohol. I used to work in places with both a university and a bit of a skid row. We would have unconscious students with 300s, but conscious career drinkers with twice that level. The therapeutic level on some of the chronic drinkers is probably enough to knock some people out.

By: rob

rob — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 10:54:26 +0000

We have a bunch of low plt values from our oncology ward but three days ago we had one that we had to report out as zero it reached the linear low limit of our sysmex. It was pretty crazy. Surprisingly though she had Itp and not a leukemia

By: rph3664

rph3664 — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 03:38:08 +0000

Youngest mom: 13. Indian reservation, stepfather was FOB.

Oldest mom: 48. Seen this twice.

Grandest multipara: G18 P14 L15. Amish.

By: Joni

Joni — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:35:38 +0000

Wow, I guess my mom is lucky!! Potassium level upon admission 1.8, calcium of 20!! She was discharged after two weeks in hospital. Still don’t know what caused it.

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:56:59 +0000

Had a new lowest hemoglobin last night- 3. Will be fine. Got 4 units of PRBCs.

Also got an all time record pulse pressure. BP was 200/10. Yeah, you read that correctly. Was very septic, maxed on levophed and vassopressin, and all it was doing was raising her systolic, not doing squat for her diastolic.

She was being kept alive by “heroic” measures when I last saw her, but will surely die soon.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:25:36 +0000

8am serum cortisol: 0.1 (normal 8-23)

Glad I didn’t get into a fender bender on the way to the lab. Eek.

By: elle

elle — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:34:04 +0000

Highest Creatinine 28-lived.

Plts-7-was doing just fine clinically, healthiest patient on the ward (had ITP).

By: cynic

cynic — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:21:12 +0000

Smallest patient, 450g born in the ED. Lived for about an hour. Tough situation.

Largest, 875lbs. Wall of his house had to be knocked down before bringing him into the ED.

By: rph3664

rph3664 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:29:24 +0000

How about the smallest and largest patients you have had?

My hospital does not have a Level III NICU, but once in a while we have emergency micropreemie deliveries, and we had a 600-gram baby a few months ago. She was flown out and lived 3 days.

We’ve had a few 600-pound patients here too. Thing is, I once worked at a hospital that did bariatric surgery and the biggest patient I saw who had that done was around 350 pounds.

By: n

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:52:48 +0000

There’s no lowest entry for SBP? I was once called to review a patient post-op and asked for the vitals as I usually do. When the nurse told me the BP was 40/20 I nearly fainted and asked her to bring in the crash cart stat, until she convinced me the patient was sitting up in bed and said her BP was always like that. When I reached the ward, true enough, the patient was walking around with a SBP of 40-60!! I took it 5 times manually before I was convinced! She was on daily midodrine.

By: rph3664

rph3664 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:38:57 +0000

Serum creatinine of 29. Died.

I’ve seen a few pH levels below 7. People that critically ill usually go to a tertiary care facility, so I don’t know what happens to them.

My dad has chronically low sodium, as did my grandmother, and I appear to have it too. Both have been/were (Grandma died last year at 91) hospitalized for it; Grandma’s was once 120 and the doctor couldn’t believe she was talking to him. After that admission, my dad said, “Next time I see her at the nursing home, I’m going to give her nurse a bottle of salt tablets and tell her to make sure she takes them!” Uh, not so fast - you need a physician’s order for those!

Blood sugar >1500, more than once. Don’t remember what happened to them.

By: Dr. Dredd

Dr. Dredd — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:14:18 +0000

Saw a patient in clinic today who walked in looking a little pale. His hemoglobin? 4.0. I thought that was the lowest I’ve ever seen until I repeated it. It came back as 3.6.

By: WillConsult4Food

WillConsult4Food — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:32:37 +0000

My father was in the ICU for respiratory problems this summer. His CO2 was off the chart, and his Ph was 6.8 at one point… it scared the heck out of everybody.

He’s still breathing (much better) now, thanks to the folks at Denton Presbyterian.

By: ArmyDoc

ArmyDoc — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:40:12 +0000

Forgot about the glucose: 26 - talking coherently - we were doing a 72hr fast and he lasted about 18hr - huge insulinoma = whipple’s

By: ERP

ERP — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:19:53 +0000

Oh yeah, I forgot about highest and lowest temperatures.
Highest: 110 degrees (survived but was in bad shape)
Lowest: 78 degress (died once we warmed him up)

By: ee

ee — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:38:25 +0000

Whitecap, ditto…109 Rectal after cooling measures in the ambulance…lived, but, his brain’s “like chicken soup.” Doc’s words, not mine.

Lowest glucose was 24…and he was talking, coherently! Frequent flier…when he died we all went to his funeral.