Dear Friends,
Today I wanted to write about one of my favorite parts of my job — reviewing labs! As an internist and integrative/functional medicine specialist, I’m passionate about seeing the objective data on patients’ health. The beautiful thing about my practice, is I get to see lab values improve so significantly over the course of months! As people eat better, exercise more, take the right supplements, and take better care of themselves, we see radical changes in their bloodwork. This is PROACTIVE AND PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE.
Why wait until your health falls apart? Find out now what is gong on with your body and fix it! Test, don’t guess! That is my philosophy and I take great joy in helping people feel amazing; with their lab values showing in black and white their exact progress.
Checking a thorough and comprehensive lab is one of the ways we can objectively find out how your body is doing in terms of nutrients (iron, vitamin D, B vitamins), hormones, thyroid function, metabolic function, and inflammation, and autoimmune disease.
I also wanted to share some tips on HOW BEST TO PREPARE FOR YOUR LABS.
1) If we are checking insulin or lipid panel, please be fasting for a full 12 hours, but you can drink water. So if you are going to the lab at 8 AM, please do not eat after 8 PM the night before.
2) For patients on thyroid medication, if your medication is T4/T3 compounded, desiccated thyroid (Armour, etc), or if you are on any T3 medication (Cytomel or liothyronine), please skip the medication on the morning of the labs (you can take it after your blood is drawn). The T3 component present in these medications can falsely raise the T3 value on the labs since it has a shorter half life compared to T4. For those on levothyroxine or Synthroid (only T4) it does not matter if you take or skip your medication.
3) For patients on hormone replacement (men or woman), please use/ apply your hormones the morning of the labs or night before as you would usually do, so we can see your blood levels.
4) For patients on pregnenolone or DHEA supplement, or prescription pregnenolone/ DHEA, please take the morning of the labs (even if fasting if possible) so we can measure your level and see if your dose is appropriate.
5) For patients on Biotin supplements (anything over 1000 mcg or 1 mg (this is found in most hair-nail supplements), please hold your Biotin for 3 days prior to labs since it can affect the thyroid tests.
If you are not sure, please contact us and I am happy to provide exact instructions specific to your lab order.
Let’s check your labs and see how we can improve them!
Warmest regards,
Rajsree Nambudripad, MD
Dr. Rajsree is a caring and compassionate physician, who is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Integrative/Holistic medicine. She is passionate about helping patients optimize their health through a preventative approach involving healthy lifestyle, dietary changes, targeted nutritional supplementation, and optimizing hormones. Her practice is unique in the personalized attention she devotes to each and every patient.