• Welcome to Crohn's Forum, a support group for people with all forms of IBD. While this community is not a substitute for doctor's advice and we cannot treat or diagnose, we find being able to communicate with others who have IBD is invaluable as we navigate our struggles and celebrate our successes. We invite you to join us.

Negative Calprotectin doesn't make sense!

Diagnosed with Crohn's a decade ago, but been in a remission for the past 3ish years so not on any meds, and I moved during that time so I'm seeing a completely new doctor now. Recently symptoms got bad...like many bowel movements a day, severe pain, blood in stool bad.


So new doc is doing all the tests, MRI w/enterography, colono and endoscopy, labs and stool samples.
Labs- Very high CRP,high platelets anemic and low B12, sed rate normalish (even at my sickest my SED rate was normal-been told SED rate for a small percent of populate SED rate is bad indicator thats why we use CRP as well)

fecal Calprotectin-normal

MRI was yesterday so results should be soon and colono is next week. Hoping those come out as expected because otherwise I'm afraid he is gonna blow me off and not do anything, its how he treated me in my initial consult. Anyone know why calprotectin could be negative with small bowel crohns?
 
My calprotectin and bloods are always normal or only just outside normal, even when I've got severe or moderate inflammation present.

Hopefully the MRI and colonoscopy will show what's going on!

Best of luck
 
Hi
I had normal everything except FC & pill cam. Bloods are fine, MRI, colonoscopy all fine yet was so ill. I've felt like my docs have been blowing me off as well despite the 600+ fc & ulcers on pill capsule. Only on steroids & battling to get on something more permanent. Keep pushing, you know your own body...
 
I think FC is a more accurate test when there is large bowel inflammation; when the inflammation is confined to the small bowel FC doesn't rise as much. But there are others who know far more about the test than I do.
 
I think FC is a more accurate test when there is large bowel inflammation; when the inflammation is confined to the small bowel FC doesn't rise as much. But there are others who know far more about the test than I do.


That would make sense, and it's something I had wondered myself!
 
FC is not raised only in upper GI inflammation or if you are on imunosupressat therapy (6MP, Humira, Remicae , Imuran and such... )
 
That would make sense, and it's something I had wondered myself!
My docs said the same... usually calprotectin makes more sense to test if the disease is in the large bowel. If its in the small bowel the test could be "false negative" as the cells go through the large bowel and loose the traces of inflammation...
However in my case i have CD located in the small bowel only (my last colon was negative) and I had very high level of calprotectin (400-900) even with Humira... so i guess i had a very severe inflammation ongoing. In fact i developed strictures and bleeding :(
 
One of the main advantages of calprotectin is that it rises in small bowel inflammation as well. However the raised values are usually smaller in the range of 50-200 mg/kg. These values are considered borderline or negative in some labs. What are your values? Did you retest calprotectin? The only way this could happpen(high crp, anemia and low fcp) is if you have inflammation outside the GI or in the upper Gi. Have in mind that crp is non-specific and much worse marker than calprotectin. What symptoms do you have?
 
Top