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 to compare against.
Post reference ranges alongside numbers when you share them. Units differ by country — glucose and lipids especially — and half the confusion in these threads is unit mismatch rather than disagreement.
What I am trying to establish is what actually belongs on a baseline panel, as opposed to the enormous list that gets pasted around here.
Not looking for reassurance. Looking for the part I have got wrong.
Short answer first, then the reasoning. 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.
InsuranceTom said: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…
InsuranceTom has the substance of this right. The condition it depends on is worth stating. One addition: if the lab changes analytical platform between your draws, the comparison breaks and nobody tells you. It is worth asking when a value moves inexplicably.
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View Resultstammy_FL 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…
Can confirm the pattern tammy_FL describes. 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 and B12, and a full blood count. That set catches the things that change, the things that explain symptoms, and the things that alter the prescribing decision. Almost everything else on the long circulating lists is either invariant, uninterpretable without a specific question, or an incidental finding waiting to cause an unnecessary workup.
Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads.
PSA: get baseline labs BEFORE starting baseline bloodwork therapy. You need a "before" picture to measure progress. My recommended pre-treatment panel:
Total cost at Quest without insurance: ~$200. Worth every penny for the data.