How to Test for Hereditary Angioedema

It’s outdated to expect a doctor to be wearing a white coat and have a stethoscope around their neck when they come through the door to see you. You can still expect them to be fully dressed, although in a decade or two from now that may be outdated too. By then it may be the norm that physicians wear nothing but footwear when they meet with people. When you realize that the majority of patients would be agreeable to that it really makes you think about how ways of thinking have changed so dramatically over the years. But this has nothing to do with how to test for hereditary angioedema.  

It is a rare genetic condition and so there’s going to less out there informing people about how testing for it is done. The nature of the symptoms that occur means it is very unlikely a person can have hereditary angioedema and be unaware of it. Most people will be at this stage in childhood, as that’s usually when the extremities swelling starts and the patient and their doctor will be looking at the diagnosis. So it becomes about understanding what goes into hereditary angioedema testing and what people can expect at the time.  

This will almost involve a blood test first, and the test that is given will be to determine the levels of C4 and presence of C1-INH blood proteins. If C4 protein levels are low when the swelling is happening this is a strong indicator of hereditary angioedema. The test for C1-INH is to see if the protein is malfunctioning, or in rarer instances because there is not enough of it in the blood too. There are type 1 and type 2 hereditary angioedema, and Type 1 is more common. Low C1-INH is a prominent metric with how to test for hereditary angioedema because if that’s seen then it’s going to be type 1 in most of these instances.  

Test Genes Too 

There is also a type 3 HAE and for diagnosis of that doctors will take a different approach to how to test for hereditary angioedema. Genetic testing will be needed for diagnosis in these cases. There will often already be an assumption with what’s happening there, and again that’s because hereditary angioedema is always going to be something that people will be inheriting from their parents or another predecessor in their family.  

But not always, up to 25% of type 3 HAE diagnoses are made without any indication that a familial inheritance was factoring into the diagnosis. Changes to genetic structure in the body will usually be what’s at the root of the condition when the possibility of genetic predisposition is ruled out. Knowing how to test for hereditary angioedema is the kind of information only a doctor will need to know of. If you have that diagnosis and need start on an immunomodulator medication like Orladeyo then it always makes sense to order Rx medication online from Canada.