My prescriber ordered three tests and this board recommends about twenty, and I would like to know which of those two lists is right.
So the question, as narrowly as I can put it: how often to repeat it, because quarterly seems to be the convention and I cannot find the reasoning.
Practical detail welcome, however dull — the duller the better.
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.NateNeph said:The single most useful discipline is bringing the whole panel to a clinician rather than one flagged value.
Agreed, and reference ranges are laboratory-specific. Comparing your number to somebody else's range, or to a screenshot from another country, is how people convince themselves something is wrong.
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View ResultsCarlaRPh_TPA 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.
Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice.
PSA: get baseline labs BEFORE starting baseline bloodwork therapy. You need a "before" picture to measure progress. My recommended pre-treatment panel:
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