Deciphering blood results

[sonjafoers]

My horse has had a bacterial infection and the vet has just given me the read out from the initial blood tests. He explained to me that a viral infection shows high red blood count and a bacterial one shows high white blood count but the rest of it meant nothing to me! I'd be interested to understand the results a bit more and wonder if anyone can help.

WBC 11.4
RBC 7.96
HGB 12.5
HCT 32.8
MCV 41.2
MCHC 38.1 ( and it has an exclamation mark after it) !
PLT 66L

LY 10.4% (vet says this should be 30 ish)
MO 3.6%
EO 0%
GR 86.0% ( vet says should be 60 ish)

Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[Tempi]

HGB (hemoglobin): Amount of hemoglobin contained within a red blood cell.

HTC (hematocrit): The percent of blood that is composed of red blood cells.

PLT (platelets): Number of platelets present

MCV (mean corpuscular volume): Relative size of the red blood cells.

MCH (mean corpuscular hemoglobin) & MCHC (mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration): These two indices are based on formulas relative to the RBC count and HCT, respectively, and are mostly used when an animal is anemic and trying to determine the type/cause of the anemia. An anemic animal would have a low HCT or PCV (packed cell volume).

RDW (red cell distribution width): This is an index of the degree of the difference in the size of red blood cells, again, mostly used in determining anemia status

Normally, the most important parameters are the HCT, HGB and platelet count. If marked abnormalities are noted, then the other indices come into play

 

[sonjafoers]

Oh dear I knew it was going to be technical and although I understand what you have said it still doesn't mean much to me in terms of her health. However I'm guessing that because you didn't mention anything about her results and the vet says everything is pretty much as it should be then I shouldn't worry.

Thank you for your reply anyway - I shall leave the technical stuff to those who know what they are doing!

 

[Meg2]

Viral would be a high lymphocyte count rather than raised RBCs.
your horse has a WBC count that is borderline up with a differential that suggests a possible bacterial infection. Also the platelets are a little low which may not be significant.
IOW nothing too much worry about!