in a normal person wiht hgb 12-15, it should be around 1%. If you are anemic, you lose normal red cells, so it naturally goes up from basic mathemticas perspective. hgb of 8 has like 2% retic if nothing else changes.
Now when you're anemic, your body decides to increase the rate of red cell production and shoot em out early. Therefore, with that hgb of 8 and retic of 2%, your body is failing to increase production appropriately. if your retic count is 4% in this case then your body is doing the appropriate compensation. If your retic count is less than 2%, your body is really failing to compensate.
Either way you hve to look at the overall clinical picture. a specific retic % is a clue to whether your body is underproducing, unable to increase production, or is able to appropriately compensate. But it does not tell you specifically what process is causing the anemia.
