Just wondered if anyone has had an elevated CK test?
I had a bought of bursitis (hip) and went for blood work about 10 days after the "peak" of the bursitis pain. CK came back at 1637 (normal runs between 0 and 130). Doctor says this indicates muscle damage and questioned if I had fallen or been in an accident. No pain or injury other than the bursitis. He said that "could" be the cause but was a little hesitant. I wonder if the thigh muscle was also inflamed and that is perhaps what caused the blood results? It was extremely painful to move and I spent 2 days in bed. I go back for re-testing in 2 weeks. No exercise, no strenuous activities while waiting to be retested. Anyone else had problems with the CK numbers?
Has your Thyroid been checked lately? I believe that can cause elevations in CK levels. Also, has your heart been checked? Heart attacks are a common cause for elevated CK also.
I had a full blood work up done, everything else was normal except my platelets (I have mild ITP so low platelets are my "normal"... they are generally between 100-130 so not a concern). The CK tests breaks down which tissue it comes from when it's high (heart, muscle or brain) and mine was muscle... so no heart problems and no brain damage. Yay! =)
I just wondered, since PsA inflames tendons and muscles if this might be a more common finding with us then among the general population. I've never had it before but to be honest, they never seem to get tests done close enough to a flare up for things to show up anyways. It was purley coincidence that I had a doctors appointment during the bursitis issue.
Creatinine kinase. It’s released from the cells when there is muscle breakdown. It can come from something as benign as exercise. It’s not typically checked very often as a routine lab. I have only had mine checked with heart episodes. Otherwise it’s just been complete or basic metabolic panels and complete blood counts. Threre’s my 2 cents worth!
OMG - I have so much to learn! I'm keeping a running list of the meds people mention on this forum. I haven't heard of most them. I need to keep up on my research !
Lol, Francis! There is so much to learn everywhere in medicine! You are just lucky that I remember that tidbit; there are so many things to remember! I keep seeing new drugs and read questions from others, then I have the urge to research it all. I wonder how much of it actually sticks?
I don't think it was part of the routine tests he does, I think he added it because I was experiencing pain from the bursitis. And to be honest, I told him it was my outer thigh muscle that hurt... he dx bursitis after the exam. He also ran a uric acid one which I don't think he usually does as part of "routine" blood work (that one was fine).
Exercise can increase the number but usually only about double the normal value (unless your are running a marathon, doing long hard body building sessions or something like that... which wasn't my case at all LOL). My daughter had hers come back at 224 once which they decided was due to a 4 hour cheerleading practice the night before the test. They consider that mild, 10X normal value moderate (which is where I fall), 20X normal value severe (requires hospitalization to flush your system because the kidneys don't process the CK enzyme very well). The doctor said he would expect to see numbers similar to mine in someone who had a bad fall with heavy bruising. Actually, that's what he first asked me... if I had fallen down stairs or been in an accident. Then he gave me a once over to check for large bruises (although I assured him I would remember a nasty fall LOL). Recurrent numbers in the "moderate" range can indicate a muscle disease so they rerun the tests after giving it enough time for an injury to heal. I'm sure mine will come back fine next week when I go again since my hip feels much better.
Like I said he seemed a little hesitant to blame the bursitis for the numbers. It was just a little odd which made me curious if others had similar numbers from the psa.
Inflammation (generalized) can cause it to be increase too. (know anyone with that Inflamed Endothelium cells can set it off to ..... of course a round of predi can set that off (endothelium is how it transports all the stuff to make predi work. I wouldn't be too concerned (yet)
Interesting tntlamb... no predi for me (thank goodness!). I'm really not concerned about it since I'm pretty sure it had to do with the issue I was having with my hip/thigh. It would make sense that muscle inflammation increases the number. I know when I have muscle inflammation it generally feels exactly like the same tenderness & weakness as an overworked muscle (like I did 100 squats the day before even though I know I didn't). The last episode felt similar for a couple of days and then went to a searing pain if I moved my leg the wrong way, then progressed to searing pain if I moved at all for a couple of days, then went back to feeling like an overworked muscle... I'm thinking it was muscle inflammation before the bursa became involved.
Good to know someone else has had similar issues... I hate being the oddball! LOL
I also had an episode in 2008, so it’s good to hear I’m not alone. I had a CK of 98090…no I didn’t put too many 00s in there. It was one of those crazy mysteries that doctors get excited about solving. I was having a lot of thigh muscle pain- like you described- it was as though I had done a serious workout. For me it was quite a bad episode. I’ve described it in previous posts, so sorry for the repetition on this. I started peeing red (muscle tissue) so went into the ER. I was in the hospital for 5 days until my CK dropped below 20000. It was 17068 when I left ( I was just looking at my discharge papers recently, so easy to find the exact numbers:)). They did an MRI of my legs and a biopsy of the muscle, which is no fun as they can’t freeze the muscle only the skin and they took a pretty big chunk. The staff Rheumy thought it was polymyositis and started talking about how I would likely be on steroids for the rest of my life. He said it was not related to PsA, but a different rare disease that I also had. The biopsy didn’t confirm the polymyositis dx, so no steroids for me yet!
I also thought it was happening again in late 2009, but by the time I saw my doctor for a blood work rec, my legs had stopped hurting as much and my CK was only 270 (elevated but not crazy).
At the time of my incident I was on Methotrexate, Paquinel, and sulfasalazine. I still think it may have been because of the meds, but my Rheumy and the hospital staff Rheumy insisted that it wasn’t. I found this interesting given that they stopped all meds after it happened and only let me have extra strength Tylenol in the hospital.
Those are some crazy numbers Frankie! The doctor seemed to think mine was higher since the tests were 10 days after the issue but i doubt it was anything like that. I didn’t have any kidney troubles so that part is all good.
I’m only on arthrotec 75 & tecta. Although i was dx about 15 years ago, my issues seem to be very short lived and move around a lot. Like the bursitis issue, the worst was only a couple of days. There is generally a “worsening” period and a “recovering” period but the peaks are relatively short for the nasty part. Luckily i’ve been able to manage with nsaid’s and occassionally tylenol 3. I would say my case is relatively mild compared to what some of you have to deal with. Primarily, i have muscle and tendon inflammation and my joints themselves have been spared from too many problems.
Did they figure out what caused the muscle damage? I know it wasn’t polymytosis but did the biopsy show inflammation or anything?
And I didn’t mean to marginalized the muscle and tendon pain that others have in my last post. It’s real, it hurts like a bugger! I just meant that in my case, joint damage has been minimal and since I work from home for my hubby and my kids are grown, being “out of commission” for a few days a couple of times a month hasn’t been as much of an issue as it could be if I was dealing with small kids and a normal work schedule.
Roni,
Yep - it was a crazy experience. Apparently my kidneys survived ok. They said if I was older that I probably wouldn’t have been so lucky.
The biopsy didn’t help dx it. It just ruled out Polymyositis. They kept on accusing me of taking some diet tea- I had several doctors ask me several times whether I had taken anything, which of course I had not. I guess there is a detox tea that can do some crazy things to your muscles.
Anyway, it all healed- mind you it took a lot out of me. I would say I wasn’t back to my normal self for a good 4 months (at which point I broke my foot- not my best year:)).
Hopefully that’s the last of it, but my PsA has been in remission because of 2 pregnancies,so we shall see if I have more of these episodes to look forward to now that the PsA has returned :-).
Interesting that you aren’t on the same drugs I was on- there goes my theory!