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It's unfortunate that it is not simple to get regular tests for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The whole process seems to be stuck behind the doctor appointm
by Mountain_Skies 6y ago
It's unfortunate that it is not simple to get regular tests for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The whole process seems to be stuck behind the doctor appointment firewall. This might be one of the reasons why Theranos was so readily believed. As the quantified self movement that gained popularity around the same time showed, there's an appetite in certain segments of the population for this type of testing and tracking but the process isn't very transparent and often expensive due to it being a profit center. Make it a simple yearly subscription where you can stop in at any time at a clinic like a CVS Minute Clinic, get a blood sample drawn, and then get your results a couple of hours later. Maybe a limit of once a month or once every other week depending on your needs. Only if something is out of standard range would you need to involve a doctor. It would also be good for your next annual checkup to have an entire year's worth of such data.
- moonbug 6y agoIt is, in the civilised world with functioning healthcare infrastrucure.
- Mountain_Skies 6y agoWhat do you think was helpful in your snide comment?
- eeZah7Ux 6y agoIt reminds people that the world is not the US. 30+ comments above and nobody pointed out the unspoken assumption.
- refurb 6y agoThe OP mentioned the doctor firewall. I don’t live in the US and have the same firewall. It’s not a uniquely American issue.
- hungryforcodes 6y agoIf you don't tell us where you live, it's not such a useful feedback item. In many (most) places in Asia, you can walk into any clinic and order whatever tests you want if they are reasonable and exist. For alot of tests the results could be available later that day. You do pay, but the cost is usually minimal compared to say the US.
- refurb 6y agoCanada. And sure, I could ask my doctor and he’d say “sure, if you pay for it”. So just like the US.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago...and in many other places there isn't.
- luckyorlame 6y agoGood point
- pps 6y agoI would call my lovely Poland less and less a civilised world, but even here I can test whatever I want whenever I want in at least two big networks of private labs. I go to lab online shop, buy what I want (vit D costs ~$13), download a voucher with qr code on my phone, go to the lab and 5 mins later I can go to home. I have an account on their web app, later that day I have results and can compare it to all my previous results too, each thing with nicely visualised historical data on diagram.
- nostromo 6y agoThis does exist now. Places like https://www.everlywell.com/ https://www.everlywell.com/ will test all sorts of things for you over the internet -- no doctor required.
- virtuallynathan 6y agoEven beyond that in almost every state you can order your own labs via websites like OwnYourLabs, PrivateMDLabs, RequestATest, etc. OmegaQuant also offers an at home vitamin D test.
- Mountain_Skies 6y agoIf you ask a hundred random people on the street about this, how many would know about it? Transparency is a huge problem here.
- usrusr 6y agoAnd I'd instantly not trust it because providing the service for a nominal fee would be so much less of a money printing scheme than providing the service for a nominal fee, but then once the fee had established trust using that transaction as a sales vector for all kinds of snake oil that's supposedly exactly what you need according to the results. Unfortunately there are many good reasons to burden the medical economy with all these stifling regulations. The quest for the least bad system is a permanent struggle.
- CoryMathews 6y agoI only see a test for each exact vitamin one by one. For instance Vitamin D is $49. Where is the full run-up?
- schoolornot 6y agoWhen I'm feeling ill or need a test I call a friend of mine who is a nurse practitioner in another state. She has a ballpark idea of my current health, enough info to fit on an index card. Then she files a script with the pharmacy or writes me a prescription for a blood test. The whole thing is done in 5 minutes. In fact, the whole thing is done over iMessage. Firewall is the perfect term. Everyone knows the industry is ripe to be turned upside down in the absense of a public option. What surprises me is that Walmart and Amazon still haven't attacked it head-on.
- tehlike 6y agoAmazon is starting to. See their recent announcements.
- oh_sigh 6y agoYou can get blood tests without a prescription - or at least without a nurse friend, by just paying a fairly small fee and going to a local labcorp/quest diagnostics. e.g. privatemdlabs.com (I'm not recommending this site - just giving it as an example. Though I have used it before without issue, there may be other companies providing better/more competitive services in this field)
- TechBro8615 6y agoThis is true, but a full panel of tests will easily run you in the multiple hundreds of dollars.
- ryandvm 6y agoI've often wondered if it would be economically feasible for blood donation banks to do this as a perk/incentive for giving blood. Every 6 months or so, you donate blood and as part of the process you get run-of-the-mill bloodwork report emailed to you a few days later. You'd have to make sure you weren't creating an incentive for sick people to donate blood just for the lab work, but otherwise it seems like it would be an excellent perk for donating blood.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoThat is an amazing idea. I would definitely be more incentivized to give blood if it gave me a run down of various nutrients just from a curiosity point of view. E.g. what are my selenium levels compared to the general population?
- foota 6y agoDepends, how much browser integration testing are you doing?
- 3gg 6y agoThis was a good joke; good work must be recognized.
- sunshinerag 6y agonice one.
- nucleardog 6y agoSeems like that could easily work places with universal healthcare. Very little incentive to donate for free lab work when any medically necessary lab work would be done for free anyway. And second that, would happily donate in exchange for curiousity-fulfilling bloodwork.
- dimensi0nal 6y agoThe obstacle isn’t the cost of labs, it’s the gatekeeping. Having to go to the doctor for basic bloodwork is still inconvenient even if it’s free.
- shortandsweet 6y agoWhy not make it simple? I donate blood every 2 months. They tell me cholesterol and if I have c19 antibodies. Why not other important health indicators?
- pacaro 6y agoI can't donate blood, for fairly bogus reasons, this is true for a surprisingly large subset of the population
- shortandsweet 6y agoWhat's the reason? Maybe not share it but double check that the reason is still valid. The criteria changes pretty frequently. They always need more blood.
- TechBro8615 6y agoAFAIU you can’t donate blood if you’re gay. At least, I saw some segment on Anderson Cooper where he claimed that was the case.
- nobody9999 6y ago>AFAIU you can’t donate blood if you’re gay. At least, I saw some segment on Anderson Cooper where he claimed that was the case. That's not actually true. There are some restrictions if you're a man who has sex with men, but you're certainly not permanently barred from giving blood. cf. https://nybloodcenter.org/donate-blood/become-donor/can-i-donate-blood/ https://nybloodcenter.org/donate-blood/become-donor/can-i-do...
- LordDragonfang 6y agoSo if you're in a committed, monogamous relationship where you have sex with your partner more than a couple of times a year, you're barred.
- travisoneill1 6y agoWould make a great training data set too. Who knows what patterns we haven't found for lack of looking.
- blhack 6y agoIf you are in Arizona you can just go to Sonoraquest labs and order this test yourself.
- colechristensen 6y agoHere you go https://www.pixel.labcorp.com/catalog https://www.pixel.labcorp.com/catalog About every third ad i see on instagram is for some startup’s health measurement test.
- aksss 6y agoI usually use Ultalabtests.com to order my own blood work, but it pays to comparison shop even at an individual test level. Being familiar with what tests I need to run and what the acceptable ranges are, there is literally no reason for me to go through the doctor appointment firewall anymore. Around/after Thanksgiving, many of the online test mongers discount tests heavily, so it's not a bad idea to stock up for the year on lab work orders, as they don't expire. Most online providers give you the choice of labs to use.
- meowface 6y agoI know, right; imagine if Theranos were actually legit. It'd be amazing. Something like that will probably come someday from some people who have more than just an idea and a zealous propaganda strategy. Current medicine, like a lot of fields, will probably be seen as incredibly immature in the next century.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI get an annual every year for around $150 and can request any test that I want from my doctor. I don't think this is something you need to test more often than that unless you have huge swings in your diet. Obviously if low levels of something are detected there are follow ups. I was actually low on vitamin d (by quite a lot) and started taking supplements. However, I do wish it was easier to get medical tests as you suggest without a doctors orders.
- hannob 6y agoThere's a reason medical tests aren't made easily accessible. The science of when regular testing something helps is complicated. If you test for things that are rare you might cause more harm than good by doing mass testing, because you might overwhelmingly treat people with false positive test results. There's a lively debate around various cancer screening initiatives, which often don't have any good evidence that they overall do more good than harm. The same mechanisms are true for lots of other medical tests. Ultimately a medical test should be treated like any other medical intervention: Only do it if you have scientific evidence that it helps the patient.
- bdavisx 6y agoI agree with you on "detection tests" (not sure what a Dr would call them) - but checking for vitamin deficiencies would be more of a preventative type test, and everyone should have those probably once a year or every X years, but that would lower insurance profits, so they don't happen in the US anyway.
- auganov 6y agoIn a clinical setting when you know what you're looking for, blood tests are great. Randomly running panels on yourself, you'll have a hard time distinguishing signal from noise. Or even worse interference. Say, taking high doses of Biotin is known to interfere with many tests. By all means, I'd rather have that data on myself than not. But I can see why the doctors wouldn't be too crazy about it.
- justsomeuser 6y agoI agree. I asked my doctor for blood tests but he refused as I didn’t have any symptoms. The whole system is set up to fix things after they go wrong, not to prevent them in the first place.