My prescriber ordered three tests and this board recommends about twenty, and I would like to know which of those two lists is right.
Post reference ranges alongside numbers when you share them. Units differ by country — glucose and lipids especially — and half the confusion in these threads is unit mismatch rather than disagreement.
The bit I cannot resolve on my own is how often to repeat it, because quarterly seems to be the convention and I cannot find the reasoning.
Not looking for reassurance. Looking for the part I have got wrong.
This one has a reasonably settled answer, so here it is. The single most useful discipline is bringing the whole panel to a clinician rather than one flagged value. One out-of-range result in isolation generates anxiety and unnecessary tests; the same result next to the trend and the rest of the panel usually generates a shrug.
Dr.GutHealth said:The single most useful discipline is bringing the whole panel to a clinician rather than one flagged value.
Agreeing with Dr.GutHealth, and the qualification matters more than the agreement. One addition: if the lab changes analytical platform between your draws, the comparison breaks and nobody tells you. It is worth asking when a value moves inexplicably.
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Shop Reference Standardspete_manc_UK said:My prescriber ordered three tests and this board recommends about twenty, and I would like to know which of those two lists is right.
Same position here, arrived at the long way round. Quarterly for the first year is convention rather than evidence, and it is defensible for a simple reason: it is roughly the interval over which HbA1c becomes informative again, since it reflects about three months of glycaemia. After the first year, and once doses are stable, annual is reasonable unless something specific is being followed.
From the other side of the consultation, briefly.
Blood work came back perfect. baseline bloodwork + this community = winning. 🏆