HELP: analyse blood report

General
1

I’ve been taking rapamycin for a little over two years. I’m a 36-year-old male, and I take 6 mg of rapamycin once a week and 30 mg of empagliflozin daily. I’m not a picky eater, and I eat meat and drink milk every day.

After taking rapamycin for some time, I started experiencing persistent coldness in my hands and feet, as well as noticeably dry and chapped lips. I suspected that I might be anemic, so I went to the hospital for blood tests.

Below are the abnormal results from my blood test. I haven’t had a chance to show them to my doctor yet, and I also don’t want to tell my doctor that I’m taking longevity drugs. I shared the results with Google’s AI, which strongly suspected that I might have thalassemia. However, I find that hard to believe.

Could someone help me interpret these blood test results? Do I need to take iron supplements to improve my anemia? Thank you in advance.

↓ Serum Ferritin: 24.6 ng/mL (Reference range: 30–400 ng/mL)

↑ Red Blood Cell Count (RBC): 7.59 × 10¹²/L (Reference range: 4.3–5.8 × 10¹²/L)

↓ Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV): 60.5 fL (Reference range: 82–100 fL)

↓ Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH): 18.1 pg (Reference range: 27–34 pg)

↓ Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC): 298 g/L (Reference range: 316–354 g/L)

↓ Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW-SD): 38.1 fL (Reference range: 40–52 fL)

↑ Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW-CV): 20.5% (Reference range: 12–15%)

2

You should get a hemoglobin electrophoresis and genetic testing. You most likely have thalassemia. Where in China were you born? The area south of the Yangtze River is a high prevalence region for this disease.

Usually, genetic testing alone can confirm the diagnosis. But you could also correct the iron deficiency first and recheck after 4 weeks. If it’s still abnormal, then do a hemoglobin electrophoresis, and let the doctor decide whether genetic testing is needed.

3

Why are you taking 30mg empagliflozin? The high dose is set at 25mg/day. I don’t think it makes much of a difference, just odd. As to your test - honestly, nobody can diagnose you based on this. Any guesses will be guesses - you need a full workup which nobody here has access to. The results you posted are highly unlikely due to rapamycin or empagliflozin - I have never read anything to that effect, and can’t imagine what the MOA would be. Both are pretty safe drugs at those doses.

What you should do, is take a three week break from both rapamycin and empagliflozin - that way they will be well out of your system, and you won’t have to disclose to your doctor that you ever took them. Then present yourself at the clinic and work with a doctor to nail down a diagnosis, run tests, a full workup. Once you know what your medical situation is, you can decide what to do next. Good luck!