Women’s health testing: a guide for you
Interpreting your medical test results — a necessary element of maintaining women’s health
by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP 
Tests covered in this article:
It’s no surprise to my patients that routine medical tests provide information important to understanding their whole health picture. Most practitioners request blood work, Pap smears, mammograms, and more at regular intervals. But women who come to see me are often surprised when I sit down to discuss their lab results with them for the first time. It’s a shame that many women don’t get to see their medical test results unless there’s an obvious problem, because there is so much they can do to prevent disease early when the numbers start to change.
A lot of our medical technology and testing is geared toward simply finding and tracking health problems, rather than preventing them in the first place — and many practitioners use labs and imaging studies as signposts of disease rather than looking at the overall portrait they paint of a woman’s health. I can’t tell you how many women have come to me saying they had no idea they were headed down the path toward diabetes, heart disease, or hypothyroidism until they’d progressed so far their practitioners were recommending prescription drugs.
“Within normal limits” — not the same as optimally healthy
As a practitioner of functional medicine, my “normal” ranges are often narrower than those used in conventional medicine.
As a rule of thumb for interpreting many lab test results, I take the median of the two extremes and then add 25% on either side of that number. If patients fall outside of this range, we’ll want to start making nutritional and lifestyle changes right away.
These choices can often reverse a trend before the changes become degenerative, chronic, or permanent.
In my practice, I’ve found that educating women about their lab results right away allows them to track their own progress, and gives them more power and incentive to make positive changes in their lives — before needing a prescription or a procedure. The reality is that in today’s busy medical practices most practitioners don’t have time to sit and explain each test and each result to their patients. In my recent article on the truth about modern healthcare, I explain why you are your own best health advocate.
This article is geared toward giving you some essential information that I feel all women deserve to have at their fingertips. Let’s take a look at some of the more common medical tests ordered for women on a routine visit to their practitioners so you can begin advocating for yourself.
Your own path to health
We are all living our own lives, with our own family and personal stories. I am a true believer that these stories influence our health in many ways, making us all different. This is one reason why it’s so important to follow your own health progress — even the best practitioner doesn’t know what it feels like to be in your body. Blood levels that may be normal for some, might not feel good for you. Just as one weight might suit one woman, but cause health problems in another. Any practitioner will agree that there are lab tests that signal immediate attention no matter who the patient is. But in most patients we’re looking at small changes. When I look at any of the above lab results, I always measure them against those that came before and place them in the context of the whole-patient picture. If I — or my patient, for that matter — can catch a trend upward or downward, we can intervene before the disease process sets in or continues on its path.
Einstein once said, “[S]cience can only ascertain what is, but not what should be...” It’s true — the numbers you see on your lab results today do not have to reflect what’s coming tomorrow. When it comes to the science of medical testing, we can oftentimes see health issues before they start to cause problems, and if we’re smart about it we can certainly change the outcome for the better. Using modern technology along with the wisdom of your own body can do wonders in terms of preventing disease and setting you up for a long and healthy future.
Our Personal Program is a great place to start
The Personal Program promotes natural hormonal balance with nutritional supplements, our exclusive endocrine support formula, dietary and lifestyle guidance, and optional phone consultations with our Nurse–Educators. It is a convenient, at-home version of what we recommend to all our patients at the clinic.
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Related to this article:
References on interpreting your medical test results
Original Publication Date: 12/29/2008
Last Modified: 08/17/2009
Principal Author: Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP