Lipid panel improvements mega-thread — share your numbers

sarah.morrison said:

A defensible baseline is short: HbA1c and fasting glucose, a lipid panel with ApoB if you can get it, ALT and AST, creatinine with eGFR, TSH, ferritin…

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. I would drop the "get everything" instinct further than this thread does. Every extra test is another chance at a false positive, and incidental findings have their own cost in scans, biopsies and worry.

LipidDoc_ATL said:

I got a full panel before starting and a repeat at three months, and the second one is more useful than the first purely because I now have something…

Shot day Thursday report relevant to baseline bloodwork:

Week 16. Currently on 0.5mg. Down 32 lbs from starting weight of 244 lbs.

This week's observations: Energy levels excellent, zero nausea.

Labs due next week — looking forward to seeing the metabolic panel. I'll post results in the Lab Results section when they come in.

TrialTracker_MD said:

I would drop the "get everything" instinct further than this thread does.

Coming at TrialTracker_MD’s question from a different direction. ApoB is the more informative number and it is cheap. LDL-C estimates cholesterol mass in atherogenic particles; ApoB counts the particles, and it is particle count that tracks risk — which is why the two can disagree and why the disagreement is the clinically interesting case. Triglycerides fall substantially with weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity, HDL moves modestly, and LDL-C often barely moves at all, which surprises people who expected everything to improve together.

One thing that is still open after mike_mealprep’s answer:

What actually belongs on a baseline panel, as opposed to the enormous list that gets pasted around here?

Closing the loop on my own question.

Took the whole panel in rather than the one flagged line, and the conversation lasted two minutes instead of generating three more tests.