josh_phd_bmore said:

Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here.

This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. Pushing back on the anecdote-stacking. Twenty people reporting the same thing is twenty samples from the same self-selected pool, not twenty independent confirmations.

josh_phd_bmore said:

Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here.

That is right for the common case. Whether it is right for the case being asked about depends on a detail that has not been given.

josh_phd_bmore said:

Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here.

That reframing is the part I needed. Sending this to two other people who asked me the same thing last week.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads. Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then measure again under the same conditions.

sean_dublin said:

Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then…

This is my experience too, for whatever a second data point is worth. The detail I would add is minor and it is already implied above.