Question about getting blood work done.

[Mavy]

Hey guys, this is going out to any docs or any people who regularily get blood work done.

I wanted to get my blood work done for everything for my upcoming cycle, both before and after my cycle and PCT.

i have never had blood work done before, but feel like I have recovered very well from every cycle so far, based only on my body and mood, such as libido, wood, ability to keep my gains etc. This time I would like to monitor myself and see how things really are this time and the differences pre and post cycle.

My Q is, how do I go about getting these tests. I dont have a family doc right now, but I am in the process of looking for one right now, (most docs in my city are super full and are not taking any more patients). So if/when I get one, can someone please let me know how they have went about getting the blood work done.

I here many of you say that you are open with your doc and tell them everything, which would be great assuming that this doc is down with that, but what if he is not? Is there anything that I can say that I think may be wrong with me to get these tests done? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Also, do any of you get these tests from a doctor who is not your family doctor?

Also, what tests would you say are the most important. I was thinking of these..

Cortisol,
IGF-1
T3
T4
TSH
Testosterone, Total, Free
Fasting Insulin
Lipid Profile

I would also like to get my liver values checked as I will be running var and would like to know what theya re like both before and after, just dont know how to go about getting all of this tested without straight out telling a doctor my plans. I want to see what is really going on this time ... no more guesswork. Any info is greatly appreciated bros.

Thanks in advance,
Mavy

 

[Mavy]

DrJMW, I have been reading some of your posts, can you tell me if Quest Diagnostics will service Canadians or if you know of a Canadian equivalent to this service?

Mavy

 

[40butpumpin]

hey bro, this will also serve as a bump for you, however, my answer would be that it would somewhat depend what your age is and also what your cycle history and future will be. that is to say that if you are into your 30's with a decent history and plan on continuing your usage, i would test more thoroughly from a cardiovascular perspective. if you are in your 20's with a short history, that may not be as much of a concern.

CBC/Chemistry Profile includes triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose, iron and other minerals, blood cell counts (red and white), liver/kidney function, as well as other basic information. it's a good basic test that anyone should include.

others that are a good idea for anyone getting blood work done for aas use are:

Total Testosterone
Free Testosterone
Estrodial
FSH & LH
PSA Free/Total ratio
Prolactin???

(DrGoodBody may be a good person to ask this question too, if i recall he recently had a very thorough eval done by a very prominant doctor in this area). here's a link of his...

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=264060&highlight=doctor

Others that are more cardiovascular focused include:

Homocysteine
Fibrinogen
C-Reactive Protein
Blood Viscosity

although there is some information recently that there may be a new and much more accurate test to determine CV state, or risk. take a look at the following article...i hope this helps you bro! oh btw, i contacted www.lef.org who can arrange blood tests here in the states w/o a doc but they can't do it for Canadian residents.

Blood test can warn of heart attack
By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY

Doctors ushered in a new era of heart disease detection Thursday
with a report of a blood test that can better predict which chest-
pain sufferers will have heart attacks. If the results of this and
other studies hold up, the test will offer doctors a way to diagnose
an imminent heart attack and act to prevent it.

Doctors believe the test would be used first in emergency rooms to
distinguish people who are genuinely on the brink of a cardiac
emergency from millions more who have chest pain from other causes.

Eventually, it may be offered in doctors' offices as part of a
battery of blood tests capable of identifying those who have heart
disease but don't know it.

The test could save thousands of lives. Each year, 1.1 million
people have heart attacks, and 47% of those die, the American Heart
Association says.

Tests available today, among them troponin blood tests and
electrocardiograms, or EKGs, often don't detect heart attacks until
hours after they have occurred.

For instance, troponin is a protein usually found in heart muscle
cells. By the time it turns up in an emergency-room blood test, the
damage is done. C-reactive protein tests can identify people with
inflamed arteries who someday might have a heart attack. But the new
study shows that C-reactive protein is an unreliable measure of
heart attack risk, especially in people with a positive troponin
test.

"You can tell a patient he did great (on a conventional test), and a
week later he drops dead," says Eric Topol of the Cleveland Clinic,
an author of the study in today's New England Journal of
Medicine. "There's always been something missing."

The new test measures the enzyme myeloperoxidase, or MPO, made in
white blood cells. The enzyme is produced when arteries are inflamed
and have rupture-prone fatty deposits.

"It's a very easy test to measure. It should be inexpensive to do
this," Topol says.

The study of 604 consecutive emergency room patients complaining of
chest pains showed that those with the highest levels of MPO face a
fourfold increased risk of a cardiac crisis within two months.

"It's the first simple blood test that will allow us to take a
patient who comes into the hospital with chest pain and say whether
he's in the early stages of a heart attack or if he's at risk of
having a heart attack in 30 to 60 days," says Richard Stein of the
Weill Cornell School of Medicine in New York.

The advance reflects a blossoming understanding of why heart attacks
and strokes occur. Heart disease typically begins with unhealthy
blood vessels that develop fatty deposits called plaques. When
plaques become inflamed and burst, they send blood clots and
particles flooding downstream. Large ones may clog major vessels
causing massive heart attacks or strokes. Smaller particles lodge in
smaller vessels, causing what's known as unstable angina.

By identifying which proteins are central to blood vessel
inflammation, like C-reactive protein and MPO, doctors have begun to
zero in on a new set of risk factors for heart disease. A second
study by researchers at Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany,
showed for the first time that low levels of the enzyme glutathione
also suggest a coming heart attack.

The new tests are experimental and will not become widely available
without more testing, says Teri Manolio of the National Heart, Lung
and Blood Institute in an accompanying editorial.

Major drug companies, including Abbott Laboratories, have expressed
interest in developing MPO tests, Topol says.

Once the tests become available, doctors may use them to decide who
should be treated with aspirin, cholesterol-lowering drugs and other
methods to reduce risk. "Over the next 10 years, we'll be rewriting
the rules for the detection and treatment of heart disease," Stein
says.

 

[brownpaperbag04]

This thread will answer most of your questions about WHAT to get.
http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=288921

Also if you want to get the tests done w/o a doctor for relatively cheap you can checkout these two blood test groups:
www.healthcheckusa.com (uses LabOne)
www.lef.org (uses Quest)

**I just checked the lef.org page, and their blood tests are gone! They were there as of last week I know. Maybe they're just changing the page their tests are listed on? You might call them if you're interested. Their full male analysis (which includes everything on that first thread) was like $299.

 

[40butpumpin]

i'm gonna bump this to make sure Mav got the help he needed.