my yearling

Question
i have a yearling cob which i had brought from dodgey fellas when he was 3 months old we had him checked over by our vet and said he has a high amount of white blood cells they then took a further 3 blood test but cant say what is causing this and im not getting any good answers from the net if you know anything that could cause this it would be helpfull

Answer
Felicity:

there is no specific diagnosis for something as vague as high white cell count. A high white cell count is most often associated with an infection, but can be also caused by things as varied as stress, a shot of a steroid or even leukemia. There should have been a good physical examination done with this bloodwork and if there was none, you are not using an appropriate vet for this purpose. A good physical exam and maybe some additional blood work including a serum chemistry will likely help reveal the source of the high white cell count- in my hands. If all is normal on the exam and serum chemistry, Id recheck the white cell count in case it was induced by stress or it was merely a value that fell outside (barely) their reference range- alot of vets interpret this as a high white cell count just because it falls outside the reference range of the lab, but those ranges are based on standardized expectations and by definition there are always outliers that are normal beyond this range. If it hasnt been done- get a good exam done and complete blood work including the serum chemistry. Good luck. Im here if you have any further questions.