Doesn't WBC count go up when it detects something foreign?

Question

I thought white blood cells were produced to fight infection. So if there was something foreign in your body, your count would be higher than normal, showing that it was trying to fight it off. Have I been thinking wrong?

Answer 1

You are thinking correctly, but chemotherapy destroys white blood cells along with the shrinking of cancer, the one that comes back stronger is the winner. That is why proper nutrition along with a host of other factors are the reason cancer is defeated. Chemo by itself will not kill cancer, if your body is not strong enough to recover before the cancer does the cancer wins. There are ways to kill cancer that do not depend on a good immune system but it takes a open mind and some research to find the truth. The link below is a good place to start.

Answer 2

Well, cancer cells aren't normally "foreign" but mutations of your own cells, so the response is different. White cells don't increase for all forms of infections, either, for that matter. The immune system has other responses than just white cells.

In leukemia or myeloma, the white count may actually be very low because cancerous cells have crowded out the bone marrow cells that manufacure our blood cells, including the WBC's. Some luekemias do produce very high white counts, but this is not the norm for cancer.

Answer 3

That is true in the beginning. If you have been fighting something for a while, there can be a rebound effect where the WBC count goes down because the body is working so hard to fight off the infection. The body gets tired and your WBC's get behind.

Answer 4

The three mostt common types of white blood cells are Neutrophils, lymphocytes and monocytes.
Generally, if you get a bacterial infection your neutrophil and maybe monocyte count go up.
With virus infections your lymphocytes go up.

However:
Sometimes viral infections can decrease your neutrophil count.
Some bacterial infections can cause lymphocytes to increase (Pertussis / whooping cough).
Some very serious bacterial infections (such as septicaemia) can overwhelm your body's immune system and decrease dramatically your white cell count.

Choose whichever scenario you prefer from above list.


Hope this helps

Answer 5

Ones white count will go up when there is an infection. it will not identify foriegn bodies, unless they are causing other sypmtoms, like fever, nausea with vomiting, and other signs of active disease in the body. A high white cell count will be a signal to your doctor to do further investigation you symptoms.