Are you wondering which blood and other tests you need to do for the routine checkup? Well, today I did mine and in this article I am going to share my expereinces so that you need not scratch your head when they ask you “Which tests?” at the laboratory!
Every year I do some blood and urine tests just to make sure that everything inside my body is going as intended. This year I added a new test to my annual test list and everything went well till I received the result on WhatsApp!
So, here is what happened…!
It’s been over a month since I have been rescheduling the visit to the lab. But, yesterday my younger brother asked me which test he needs to do for his annual checkup? He waas confused with all the packages promoted by the laboratory. I said, “We will go to the lab together. I have some tests to do as well!”
“Just make sure that you don’t eat anything in the morning, we will go by 8 am, tomorrow”
When I said that, my 6 year old son said, he too wanted to do the blood test as it was “nothing” when he got the needle 5 months back during his bout of viral fever. My wife joined the party and finally my mother also said she too wanted to get the blood tests done.
“Ok, great! let’s go together then,”, I said somewhat overwhelmed.
We reached the lab today by 8:30 am and all of us were fasting in order to get the right blood sample.
I ordered fasting blood sugar, fasting lipid profile, serum vitamin D, thyroid stimulating hormone, renal function test, liver function test, complete blood count with erythrocyte sedimentation rate, urine routine examination and finally fasting insulin.
I have never done this fasting insulin test before even though I had ordered it several times for my diabetic and pre-diabetic patients. It was a simple test to find out the risk of insulin resistance and I needed to know how my insulin levels was changing!
My wife ordered the same tests and my son had a complete blood count. We just wanted to make sure his white blood cells were back to normal after the viral attack back in June.
My younger brother also went for the same tests but he skipped the Vitamin D test. His wife who had joined us today morning had to do her liver function test as ordered by her endocrinologist. My mother was hypertensive and so she got her kidney function test, fasting lipid profile, fasting blood sugar and urine routine test.
We did not stay at the lab for doing the post prandial blood sugar test as we thought it could be done at home using our One Touch glucometer.
The lab technician at Aswini Diagnostic Laboratory was expereineced and she did a fine job collecting Ryan’s blood sample. I must say, getting his blood tests has made him a little bravee for a 6 year old boy.
We reached home back by 9:30 am and by 11:30 we received all the reports by WhatsApp.
My total cholesterol was the lowest in my family, standing at just 183. All the other lipid parameters were withing normal limits. Fasting insulin was also in the normal recommended range. But, my vitamin D was now at 8 , dipping from 24 in the last one year. That was a shocking result. I had no symptoms and this was totally unexpected!
My Bilirubin was at 3.7, mostly due to Gilbert’s syndrome. i need to do the other tests to confirm that diagnosis now one more time!
Other than that, everything else was looking good.
So, that’s it!
If you want to get personalised test orders, you can contact me throught the Dofody app. If you have general questions regarding an annual checkup, simple comment below!What is the relation between habits and health?
