Has anyone been told they have a high SED rate?

I'm sorry this will probably be long, but hoping someone has had a similar issue and can help calm me down.

At the beginning of December I started to get a chest pain that wouldn't go away. I thought it was just my anxiety because i had taken on a lot and it was a crazy time. But, I went to the doctor, and he did some initial bloodwork, a chest xray, ekg, lung capacity test, etc. Everything came back normal, but my bloodwork showed that my SED rate was elevated. I had no idea what a SED rate was and it was explained to me that it is the speed in which your blood drops from the top of a test tube to the bottom. It is supposed to be 0-20 and mine was 57 on the first visit. It can be indicative of many things, but is likely a sign of some kind of infection. My doc thought I could have aggravated the cartilage in my chest wall, something he sees often in women with high anxiety, although there is really no explanation for it. I went for follow up blood work a couple of more times before my trip to Italy at the end of December, and each time I went the SED rate was slightly down, although not where he wanted it to be.

After I returned home from my trip (this is now mid-January) I had no more chest pain and felt totally fine. So good that I almost cancelled my follow up appointment, but went anyway. Sure enough, SED rate is slightly lower (a point or two) but nothing to write home about. My doc orders a CAT scan and echo. After that appointment I stupidly look up on the internet what a high SED rate can mean and read all this terrible stuff about lupus, RA, etc. and am totally freaked.

I went back to the doctor on 2/14, and the CAT scan and echo came back normal. My doc thinks all it is is what he originally thought - the aggravation of the chest wall (anterior chestwall syndrome) but orders more blood just so he can continue to track the SED. I told him what I read on the internet and (after scolding me) he said that he doesn't believe it is any of those things, but depending on how this blood work came back (if SED rate was still elevated) he was going to order more labs to test for those type of things. At the time I thought he was saying he would do those things to calm me down, just as a precaution. But today the doc's office calls to tell me that my bloodwork is back and he does in fact want to test for more things because my last SED was 83, the highest it's been by far since all this started. Now I have to get my blood tested for RA factor, c reactive protien, sle, etc. - I'm not sure what any of these things mean?

I am so scared by what this all could mean and wonder if anyone has had a similar experience? If you have read this far, thank you so much!

Re: Has anyone been told they have a high SED rate?

i am sorry i do not know anything about sed but i wanted to send lots of and ur way. keep us posted.

Re: Has anyone been told they have a high SED rate?

What you are hearing about are auto and allo-immune related issues. Fortunately there are a number of treatments for these things. I have a variation of this with high ANA-which can be an indicator for RA. There are lots of natural things you can do including fish oil(pharmaceutical grade like Nortdic Naturals) and accupuncture

Re: Has anyone been told they have a high SED rate?

I agree...autoimmune diseases come with high SED rates.

I have Crohns and I have had high SED rates. Again, autoimmune.

Don't sweat it though. There can be lots of reasons why your SED rate is high.

It actually shows inflammation..not necessarily with a diagnosis.