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Blood Volume Test @ Cleveland Clinic


Darlene

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I have, if I'm remembering the right test it wasn't bad. I just sat in a chair that reclined back with feet up, so basically you're lying down, they give you an IV that they pumped something in about every 10-15 minutes I think it was and they put this large xray disk above me and took a quick xray, just had to try and sit still and maybe hold your breath for a few seconds. That was for an hour, then they sit you up, slightly reclined with your feet slightly up, almost a normal sitting position and repeat the test. I wasn't able to make it through the whole sitting down part because I was already not feeling to well, I ended up having 27% blood trans-location and something else they said I can't remember off the top of my head. It's really an easy test, nothing to get anxiety about.

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Yes. Had it done a few months ago. Like Mike said, it wasn't taxing for me either. I was laying flat though for about an hour with the same protocol (they injected something in my arm through an I've about every 10 minutes). After about an hour, they had me sit up and took a couple more measurements (mine only took about 3 minutes) and then I was all done. No worries!

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Mike, I think you are describing the hemodynamics test. I had them both done at the clinic and they did the hemodynamics test right after the blood volume test in the same room. For the blood volume test you lay down on a table. They start an IV and inject a radioactive tracer. Then they draw blood samples from the IV at different time intervals. It's pretty easy. The only bad part for me was getting the IV in but I am a hard stick so it took multiple tries.

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What made your doctor decide on this test? Is it that your hb is low? What could be done to improve it?

Im diagnosed with low blood volume (while having a heart cath) but my doc thinks it's due to shortness of plasma. If it would have been shortness of red blood cells EPO would have been a possible treatment.

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Vakiz, EPO is Erythropoietin. The stuff bikers used, to win ie the Tour the France (and other big biking courses). It raises red blood cells and could be helpful when you are short. You can find more info on it on our main site, here's a link:

http://www.dinet.org/index.php/information-resources/pots-place/pots-what-helps

It's under the letter E

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Yeah, the sweat test was something else. Especially those cute paper bikinis, lol.

My doctor suspects I'm hypovolemic by looking at my bp numbers. The closer the numbers are together, it apparently can be a sign of it. I always feel better after a few liters of fluid, and I maintain better when I'm doing about three liter IVs a week, if not more. I should have done one today, but I am way too sick to sit up anymore today to start it safely, so I'm holding out for the morning, and running today's and Fridays together (had too many appointments to run during the day to get it in me, and right now I'm sick as a dog from everything that I need to be in bed asap...already passed out once, extremely symptomatic).

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