Get a Complete Blood Workup
I highly recommend my clients begin with getting a complete work up to get a baseline understanding of several markers of their health. However, going to your doctor without a plan of WHICH MARKERS to ask for can perpetuate the cycle of “you’re fine” and more dead ends. So continue reading for a plan of what you need to do to get a complete blood workup.
Why You Need a Complete Blood Workup
We need to go beyond basic bloodwork!
While a basic blood panel, like a standard CBC (Complete Blood Count) and a CMP (Comprehensive Metabolic Panel) are a good start, most clients I work with don’t get many answers from just those tests alone. Often, basic lab testing actually creates dead ends where clients are simply told “you’re fine” and sent on their way. But if you’re here and have been told that, clearly you don’t actually feel “fine” despite those basic lab results.
I discuss a great example of this with a client of mine in my article on Blood Sugar and Weight Loss. My client would not have learned that she had insulin resistance had we not asked for more a complete blood workup. She was originally told that her blood sugar was “fine”. But instead of accepting that dead end, we also got her fasting insulin tested along with her fasting blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Then, using the HOMA-IR formula, we easily identified that she likely has insulin resistance.
Best Tests for Weight Loss and Women’s Health
I recommend the following blood tests as best practice to understand needs for weight loss, hormone balance, and metabolism. These blood markers help to properly assess the foundations of metabolic health. When working 1-on-1 with me, we will discuss more thoroughly which tests would be helpful to assess your specific needs.
- CMP (Comprehensive Metabolic Panel)
- CBC (Complete Blood Count)
- CRP (ideally hs-CRP, which stands for high-sensitivity CRP)
- Full Thyroid Panel: TSH, Free T4, Free T3, Reverse T3, and the antibodies Thyroid Peroxidase Antibody (TPOAb) and Thyroglobulin Antibody (TgAb), especially if suspicious of hypothyroidism or any autoimmunity
- Lipid panel
- Iron Panel (serum iron, TIBC or % iron saturation, transferrin)
- Ferritin
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin B12
- Hemoglobin A1c
- Fasting Blood Glucose
- Fasting Insulin or C-peptide (C-peptide does not need to be done while fasting)
Additional for hormone health, or we may consider the DUTCH test as an option depending on your symptoms:
- DHEA-S
- Testosterone, free
- SHBG
Note: fasting bloodwork usually requires no eating since waking OR at least 8-10 hours after your last meal.
Where to Get A Complete Blood Workup Done
Your primary care doctor or specialist doctor that you work with can easily order a complete blood workup. However, they likely won’t do it without your asking. So be sure to confirm that your doctor orders all the tests you want, or else some doctors may not order all the tests. Sometimes your doctor may not be willing to order certain labs. This may be because certain conventional standards of healthcare are unfortunately not comprehensive, in comparison to functional medicine. For example, the usual standard of care for assessing thyroid health is to simply test for TSH and T4 levels. However, that leaves out understanding so much more about what ELSE is often going on with thyroid health.
So be sure to advocate for your needs and desire to dig into root causes.
Sometimes doctors are reluctant to test for a complete blood workup with more comprehensive markers because they get backlash from insurance companies. Again, this is often due to the nature of the conventional healthcare system only assessing the bare minimum.
If your doctor is unwilling to test for more, or your insurance plan is unwilling to cover the costs, you CAN still get comprehensive bloodwork through services like Vibrant Wellness.
Order Any Lab Test or Blood Tests Online via Vibrant Wellness
My go-to service for ordering a complete blood workup online for my clients is Vibrant America. I can easily order from a comprehensive list of blood markers, from the basics to the comprehensive, like leptin, hs-CRP, homocysteine, Apo B, fatty acids (omega 6 
& omega 3), and much more.
Ready to test not guess?
Learn in a free 30-minute call what it’s like to work with me as your functional nutritionist!