Most people have had a basic blood panel at a physical: a blood count, a metabolic panel, maybe cholesterol. It is a reasonable screen for obvious disease and it is not designed to explain why you feel the way you do.
A comprehensive profile asks a different question. Not "is anything clearly broken" but "what is actually going on, and what would we change".
What we look at
- Full hormone panel: total and free testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, DHEA, LH and FSH, matched to whether you are male or female and where you are in life
- Thyroid, the complete picture rather than TSH alone, because TSH by itself misses a great deal
- Metabolic markers: fasting glucose, insulin, HbA1c, and a full lipid panel
- Inflammation, including hs-CRP
- Vitamin and mineral status: vitamin D, B12, folate, ferritin and iron
- Kidney and liver function, and a complete blood count
- PSA where it is appropriate
Why it matters before treatment
Hormone therapy without labs is guessing, and guessing with hormones is how people end up on treatment they never needed or at a dose that causes problems of its own. The same is true of weight loss: an untreated thyroid or an insulin-resistance pattern changes what will actually work for you.
Labs are also the only honest way to show progress. Feeling better is what matters, but numbers are what confirm the plan is working and what tell us when to adjust.
How it works
We draw in-office, the panel is run by an accredited laboratory, and results usually return within a few days. You then sit down with a provider who goes through them with you properly, in plain language, including what is normal, what is optimal, and why those are not the same thing.
You keep your results. They are yours, and they are the baseline everything afterwards is measured against.
This is a self-pay service. We will go over the exact cost of the panel with you before anything is drawn.