I have a friend that has a child that isn't even two yet and his white blood cells are high. My first thought was that he may have Leukemia, but as far as I know that hasn't been mentioned to them. I was wondering if anyone knows what could cause high white blood counts. I'm not going to tell my friend what I find out, she has the doctors for that. But I'm just wondering for myself what it may be.

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, April 14, 2008 - 02:15 pm:

Infection of almost any kind would be one guess.

By Tarable on Monday, April 14, 2008 - 02:43 pm:

Is the child sick? or was it some kind of wellness checkup that found it? Most of the time it means an infection and if they can't find the infection sometimes they give them a strong general antibiotic and it fixes whatever was there that they couldn't find.

My DH has a natural high white blood cell count. It can also be elevated by stress by what some dr.s have told him. DH went through all the tests when he switched drs once (about 4 years ago) and they decided that he had leukemia but no symptoms, but he didn't when all the tests came back in they just decided that DH was in perfect health and just has a natural high WBC count.

By Adilanylkoorb on Monday, April 14, 2008 - 03:07 pm:

I just found out about this yesterday, so I don't really know a lot of details. I don't know what the reason was for him getting checked out, but my friend said he's had this problem since February. She also said that he's irritable and isn't very active. I just hope that the doctors can find out soon what it wrong. We all know how worrisome it is when you have a sick child. On top of that my friend is pregnant with their second child and this is stressful for her.

By Kaye on Monday, April 14, 2008 - 03:39 pm:

Typically cancer (leukemia) drops blood counts not lowers them. However infection will raise them, inflamation can raise them, but even viruses can make them high.

By Amecmom on Monday, April 14, 2008 - 06:27 pm:

My son had no sign of infection, but he was just not sleeping well and he was very cranky - around age two. I asked the doc to do a complete blood count and it turned out that his when count was high. They gave him antibiotic and the count wet back to the normal range. About six months later, it happened again and then never seemed to reappear.
They were never quite able to pinpoint what was wrong.
Now, that he is older and has had a lot of sinus infections without the tell-tale nasal discharge, my guess is it was a sinus or adenoid infection.
Good luck to your friend. It is nerve wracking when a child is ill.
Ame