***More detailed info on autopens***. This is a review of the article The Elusive Autopen by Kevin Martin. It appeared in _Autograph Collector's Monthly_, Oct 1994. In respecting his copyright, I have chosen not to include it verbatim.
Confidence votes 246. On the mend means recovering, usually from an illness or injury.
In other words it tells you something is going on, but not what that something is. (A related test is C-Reactive Protein). A normal sed rate, however, does not mean you do not have an inflammatory disease. In other words, a high sed rate is a useful test result; a normal or mildly elevated sed rate is not helpful.