Ordering bloodwork is a helpful tool that we can use to help assess your health as it helps to take the guesswork out. Bloodwork can be used to identify deficiencies and missing gaps in your health. For example, it can help find reasons to explain why you might be experiencing low energy, hair loss, hormonal imbalances, changes to weight, etc. We can assess levels of different hormones and vitamins to help us strive for optimal levels. Having “normal” levels seen within bloodwork is not good enough, you deserve better and by knowing what your current levels are we can help to optimize your levels so you can feel your absolute best!

It is recommended to at least have bloodwork done every year to reassess your levels and to ensure everything is still within the optimal range. If any deficiencies are discovered on the initial assessment then it is often that we will run bloodwork multiple times a year to reassess those levels that were deficient to ensure that target levels have been reached. This is commonly seen with measuring vitamin D, especially living in Ontario, we are often very deficient in vitamin D. The best part is that optimizing vitamin D can easily be achieved through oral supplementation or through vitamin D injections. Vitamin D is important for supporting our immune system, mood, hormone production, increasing energy, regulating insulin, supporting sleep and so much more! Even if you only want to measure your vitamin D, it is still a great place to start as optimal levels of vitamin D can improve many aspects of our health.

As a naturopathic doctor in Ontario, bloodwork is not covered under OHIP, however, the beauty in that is that we can individualize the tests we order to specifically fit your needs and your budget. Ordering bloodwork is also a great place to start if wanting to assess your health and can help guide treatment.

These are common tests I often run for patients interested in having a thorough assessment of their health:

• Complete blood count – shows us components of both red blood cells and white blood cells
• Ferritin – storage form of iron
• Vitamin B12 – to screen for any deficiencies (low levels related to low energy)
• Vitamin D – to screen for any deficiencies (low levels related to many areas of your health)
• Thyroid stimulating hormone – this hormone is actually produced in the brain and signals to our thyroid to produce T3 and T4
• Free T3 – our active thyroid hormone
• Free T4 – inactive thyroid hormone 
• Fasting glucose, HbA1C – to screen for diabetes
• Fasting insulin – to rule out insulin resistance (common in many PCOS cases, those with intense sugar cravings, weight loss resistance, etc)
• ESR, CRP – general inflammatory markers 
• Estrogen on Day 3 of your period/menstrual cycle and progesterone on Day 21 of your menstrual cycle – to help us identify any hormonal imbalances affecting your menstrual cycle, mood, energy, etc

There are many more tests we can run but depending on your health history and symptoms more tests can be run to provide a thorough assessment of your health. 

If you haven’t had bloodwork done in awhile or don’t know where to begin, let’s chat and create an individualized plan for your health goals!