Insulin levels — what worked for you?

TrialNerd_Beth 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…

I read this differently from TrialNerd_Beth, on substance rather than tone. 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.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

CryptoCarl 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…

PSA: get baseline labs BEFORE starting baseline bloodwork therapy. You need a "before" picture to measure progress. My recommended pre-treatment panel:

1. CMP + A1C + fasting insulin
2. Complete lipid panel with particle count if possible
3. hsCRP, ferritin, B12, vitamin D
4. Thyroid panel (TSH + free T4)
5. CBC with differential
6. Liver panel (ALT, AST, GGT)
7. DEXA scan or body composition

Total cost at Quest without insurance: ~$200. Worth every penny for the data.

VendorMark said:

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

Shot day Wednesday report relevant to baseline bloodwork:

Week 13. Currently on 0.5mg. Down 39 lbs from starting weight of 251 lbs.

This week's observations: Mild fatigue day 1-2 post-injection, then fine.

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

Following on from Dr.DermMIA — and this may be the naive question:

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

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

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