I leave it to the doc to determine what’s necessary… I test my blood glucose levels many times daily so unless there is a particular concern elsewhere i don’t go out of my way to ask my doc to order labs for it
1 Like
I’ve been relegated to endo visits every six months and get a full metabolic panel, urinalysis, Vit D, Thyroid panel, BUN , creatinine, and a couple I’m sure I’m forgetting, a week before every visit. The lab EOB is literally 3 pages long.
I do find value in having this done twice a year.
2 Likes
If you are getting an A1C test done, it is useful to know how long your RBC’s are lasting. I often notice that when my A1C is particularly low, it happens at the same time as when I have been killing off my RBC’s faster than usual. So I like getting the CBC, and insurance covers it, so the only thing it costs me is a little bit of blood.
Similar to @Sam, our A1c is strictly an A1c just like a BG meter is strictly a BG.
When we get a more comprehensive lab workup, we use Quest Diagnostics. Results for certain lab work are not directly comparable across labs and the reference range for a particular lab is the range which needs to be used. All things considered, we just stick with Quest and run all our bloodwork (save for A1c) through them.
@Eric - When you mention the CBC, how does this give you information on the longevity of your RBC?
Note that when we have a CMP done and the glucose is tested, we very specifically do not fast and don’t care at all about that value. However based on conversations here and the posts by Terry over at TUD, I am seeing we could get significant value in the glucose component of the CMP - not the value itself but rather (as discussed) taking our own meter reading at the same time and comparing that with the lab result to test meter accuracy. Other than that, we don’t care about the glucose reading. When we get tests run, we typically get a lot of tests. Fasting and then having lots of blood drawn often times results in unpleasant circumstances which we have learned the hard way to avoid. Eating before the testing, extra hydration the night before (water in the morning is too little too late) and cutting the number of vials drawn to 6 or 7. If they need more, then can do a pour-off or then can start picking tests to skip.
We ask the phlebotomist before the draw how many vials. If more than six then we have a conversation. I am well aware of the actual options available.
Wow at this point you might as well just give blood…That is a lot of vials. How do I know, well when I was involved in a military helicopter "accident’ in the middle of nowhere, we had to go to a small rural hospital for the blood draw to prove we weren’t drunk or on drugs, and the technician was scared by the very complete list of things he had to test for. In the end he filled 12 vials to ensure he could send two out in case the primary lab couldn’t do the test. He was a slightly warped individual and he seemed to enjoy vials 9-12 where I could feel the vacuum moving up my arm and the vial filling ever so slowly. He refused to stick the other arm for vial 11-12 and we almost had a rough morning.
1 Like
Was Brian Williams with you?
3 Likes
He was if you ask him. And we were under enemy fire from Canada. Those Canadians are trigger happy I tell you.
/sarc
1 Like
There is nothing in the CBC that tells you directly how old your RBC’s are. But we always interpret my results based on our previous results to get an idea of how quickly I am killing my RBC’s off. The reticulocyte count can be used to give an idea (reticulocyte count is not always included in a CBC).
Reticulocytes are the immature red blood cells (reticulocytes are in the blood for about 2 days before developing into mature red blood cells). In general you would only have a small number of reticulocytes in relation to your mature red blood cells. But when mature RBC’s are destroyed, it causes a lot of new reticulocytes to be made.
Again, this is just the doctor’s and my extrapolation based on years of tests results, and me knowing what I have been doing with my body for the prior months. This would be considered a non-standard interpretation of these values. I am not sure this is something useful for everyone, but I like looking at it.
I don’t know what you are having done, but that seems like a lot. I have never had more than 3-4 vials drawn.
Yeah - this is not part of the CBC that we have run. It is available (I looked up after reading your post) but it would be its own test.
Agreed. It is a lot of tests. We have been paring down and not running as much or as frequent.
(I assume fairly obvious multiple conditions are having tests ordered and run - not just T1)