And it was well above the upper limit^^ The first test i have taken that has some connection to my symptoms.. Anyone else taken it? Took it after being seated waiting for two hours so should be pretty legit, of course they didnt look more into it and asked me to go to the GP with it
Yup, mine was elevated too. I have a home-tester now, and it's typically elevated in the evening if I've been too active, and is often followed by a crash to some degree. I did a 3 minute exercise test at home, and instead of steadily dropping afterward, my lactate continued peaking for an hour or two. So maybe ongoing lactate production after exertion when it should have stopped, and/or trouble clearing out the lactate. Someone else posted here about it recently, and Vink did a case-study of himself, publishing his absurdly high lactate levels just from walking a few feet to the toilet and back to bed. Julia Newton also did research showing that "exercised" cells cultured from ME patients produced a huge amount of lactate compared to cells cultured from healthy controls.
This is the UK site for home testers of the brand that I use: https://www.lactatelevel.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d27_blood_analyzer.html It's also a typical test done as part of blood gas analysis in a hospital or fancier clinic, though that would use a venous sample. It's one where they can get results very quickly, and it's used in testing for acidosis. I have very low oxygen saturation on the same test: 25-50%, when it should be 75%
Yup, registered 7.4 mmol/litre on a recent test, normal range < 2mmol. I had been active directly beforehand, brisk walk from train station to hospital, then up a flight of stairs... just normal everyday stuff for a healthy person so it was still excessively high. I saw some literature suggest ~8mmol would be expected post-marathon or after interval training to exhaustion I've just had it retested, this time after sitting in a waiting room and consultation for over an hour, so that may shed some more light on it when I get results. What was your reading?
Well that was quick, results were waiting in the letter box Repeat lactate test was normal! Hmm. Still going ahead with muscle biopsy & genetic analysis as far as I know, presumably lactate elevations can be transitory in mito diseases. Based on what Mark Vink has said in the past (and @Valentijn too IIRC) I do wonder if having eaten lunch before the first blood draw may have had some impact. I get frequent postprandial abdominal pain and a surefire way to bring it on is to eat after exercise.
From Wikipedia, to try to help with confusion over the difference between lactate and lactate dehydrogenase: Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH or LD) is an enzyme found in nearly all living cells. LDH catalyzes the conversion of lactate to pyruvic acid and back, as it converts NAD+ to NADHand back. A dehydrogenase is an enzyme that transfers a hydride from one molecule to another. I think the idea with ME is that there might be a problem of reduced lactate dehydrogenase function, and hence a build up of lactate, and hence incomplete breakdown of glucose for energy. But I'm not a biochemist.
Thanks, Trish. I thought it might be too good to be true - I've had lactate dehydrogenase measured as part of test bundles in the past, but never something called just "lactate".
The gold standard would be testing CSF lactate levels, since that tends to be chronically elevated if there's a problem.
Just to confuse matters further, lactate and the enzyme LDH exist in L & D isomers. The tests we're talking about only measure L-Lactate, which is normally produced during anaerobic activity by the activity of L-LDH in our cells. D-Lactate should only be found in very small amounts (100x less than L-Lactate) under normal circumstances because our cells lack D-LDH to produce it, though there are some other pathways to make small amounts. D-Lactate can be found in certain foods and can be produced by bacteria in your bowels. Its established that significant amounts of D-Lactate can be produced if bacterial imbalance occurs as a result of stomach surgery, but now there is suspicion it is happening also in SIBO and similar bacterial overgrowth conditions that many of us are vulnerable to. As I mentioned though, D-Lactate wouldn't impact a normal plasma lactate test. So the reason I wonder if eating has any impact on my test results is more from a blood flow angle, as intestinal ischemia is known to create a lot of L-Lactate.
Thats high! Mine was 2.8. Ill be trying it one time i have not eaten in advance also, + would be good to take one after waking up or after lying in bed for a while. I believe Katarina Lien soon wil publish her lactate-study which will be very interesting
Is there anything we can do if lactate is high? Does bicarb help or have I misremembered? Just wondering if there’s any benefit in doing this monitoring- eg not sure my GP would take any notice if I did it and my readings were high. Anyone shared this with their doctor? What was the reaction?
I dont imagine so, in other states with high lactate u usually need to treat the cause. So Houston, we have a problem..
IV bicarbonate can help when used in hospitals, so people drink it on that basis. But it's very unlikely that drinking it has any effect. My GP is a complete moron, so I wouldn't bother mentioning it to her, or anything else - I'll stay home unless something's bad enough to go straight to the hospital. Specialists here won't touch ME patients, so they don't care about that or my ridiculously low venous oxygen saturation. My ME specialist (KDM) accepts it as pretty normal for ME patients, though it didn't alter my treatment.
If you take this to a Myologist (muscle disease specialist) they should absolutely take note. In the right context Hyperlactatemia will raise suspicion of mitochondrial disease and should lead to biopsy and/or genetic testing.
