Day 39- Blood Test

So after 3 years of persuading other people on the importance of getting their blood work done, I finally did it myself! This morning I went to the lab with my growling tummy (you have to fast for at least 12 hours) and had them take a couple vials of blood.

The purpose of getting your blood work done?

By Monday I should have my results back from the lab. I ordered a Chem panel, Lipid panel, Thyroid panel, and a CBC with differentials. These panels are enough to tell me whether or not I have these nutritional imbalances:

• Blood sugar dysregulation
• Cardiovascular issue
• Anemias, such as B12 or Iron
• Bacterial infection
• Parasitic infestation/Allergies
• Viral infection
• Chronic or Acute immune issue
• Liver dysregulation
• Vitamin D imbalance
• Dehydration
• thyroid
• etc

You will notice that when you receive the results back from the lab there is a laboratory range listed on the test. If you are high or low outside of the laboratory range then in conventional medicine this usually means that you are in a diseased state; for example glucose above 127 is standard for Diabetes.

There are several differences in looking at a blood tests with a functional medicine approach. First of all there are functional ranges. Functional ranges are just a narrower look at the laboratory range. Actually if you were to look back about 10 years ago, the functional ranges that have been determined today would have reflected the laboratory ranges that were used back then. Why is this? Well laboratory ranges are determined by taking an average of all the people that go to the lab to get their blood drawn; so as people have become sicker and more medicated the average results for people have become wider and wider. The problem with this is that when you are trying to catch an issue before it becomes more serious you don't want most of the ranges to be that wide. This why functional medicine can be seen more as a preventive approach.

Another difference is that functional medicine doesn't just look at single markers to determine if there is an issue, it looks at several issues to determine a"pattern." For example if glucose is normal, but the LDH marker is low then we still might address this as a reactive hypoglycemic pattern. Or if cholesterol and triglycerides are high they may be high due to elevated glucose, which is seen in an insulin resistance pattern. The best way to look at this approach is to look at one marker and see all the possibilities that it could be affecting by being out of range. Then by considering that marker and then looking at several other markers along with it you are able to narrow down the possibilities and the "picture" becomes clearer.

Another difference, is that I was able to order a comprehensive wellness panel and it only cost me $82.00. Whereas if I would have gone to my doctor and had them order me a blood test, of course I would have received a full cardiovascular panel, but the rest of the panel would have been very minimal. This isn't their fault exactly, most are so tied by insurance that they aren't able to order a full blood panel, because it isn't seen as necessary. For an example when I look at blood tests that were ordered by a medical doctor, a thyroid panel only consists of the TSH marker; which doesn't really tell me anything about the state that the thyroid is in. To fully understand where there is a breakdown in communication in the body, we have to look at the entire picture and not just a snapshot of one area.

So after 3 years, I'm finally practicing what I preach.

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP