Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. Whatever the answer turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, and invite the correction. That is slower than asserting, and it is the only version that survives being wrong.

TrialTracker_MD said:

Whatever the answer turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, and invite the…

Second this. I had assumed I was the exception until I read this.

TrialTracker_MD said:

Whatever the answer turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, and invite the…

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it. The narrow version usually has an answer; the broad version usually does not, and answering the broad one is how a thread stops being useful.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

Closing the loop on my own question.

Closing this out. What actually changed my mind was the point about waiting for a trend instead of reading a single measurement, which is embarrassing in hindsight and worth saying anyway.