Posting this under the heading it deserves: Building a sensible monitoring schedule with your prescriber Everything below is what sits behind that.
Reading back through what has been written here about Building a sensible monitoring schedule, three questions come up every time and only one has ever been answered properly.
Listing all three, with what I think the state of the answer is for each, so the thread can start further along than the last one did.
Worth separating two things that the opening post runs together.
The strongest argument against my own position on Building a sensible monitoring schedule, stated as well as I can state it, since nobody else has yet.
The opening post is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Glycaemic markers integrate over different periods. A point glucose and a longer-term marker disagreeing is not a contradiction; it is two different questions.
This is the answer, and the reason it is the answer is the more useful part.
Adding a null result on Building a sensible monitoring schedule. I looked, carefully, and found nothing, and null results deserve posting precisely because they never are.
Repeat before acting is standard practice for an isolated abnormal result on most analytes, and it is standard for a reason.
The variance between people here is larger than the effect being discussed.
Post #5 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
What I would tell a new member reading about Building a sensible monitoring schedule for the first time: the confident posts are not the reliable ones, and the reliable ones are longer.
I read post #6 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Building a sensible monitoring schedule would be much easier to settle if anyone reported the denominator. Almost nobody reports the denominator.
Building on post #8 rather than restating it.
A trend needs at least three points to be a trend. Two points are a line and a line through noise is still a line.
Adding the measurement that post #10 says would settle it.
Time of day: some biomarkers vary across the day. Cortisol in the morning differs from cortisol in the evening. Comparing results from different times of day is comparing things that are not the same.
What would change my mind on Building a sensible monitoring schedule is a second dataset collected by someone with no stake in the first. Until then I hold it loosely and I would rather say so than pretend to more.
Repeat before acting is standard practice for an isolated abnormal result on most analytes, and it is standard for a reason.
I have left out the parts I could not verify.
Speaking only to Building a sensible monitoring schedule as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.
Source for the Building a sensible monitoring schedule figure, since it was asked for. It is in the discussion rather than the abstract, which is why the version circulating is stronger than the paper is.
Reading the surrounding paragraph is worth the two minutes. The authors are more careful than their summarisers.
Glycaemic markers integrate over different periods. A point glucose and a longer-term marker disagreeing is not a contradiction; it is two different questions.
Scoping that to what I have actually seen rather than what I have read.
For anyone finding this later: the short answer on Building a sensible monitoring schedule is that it depends on one thing, and the rest of the thread is people identifying which thing.
On post #20 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
A trend needs at least three points to be a trend. Two points are a line and a line through noise is still a line.
Posted with less confidence than the sentence structure implies.
Post #22 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Two things can be true about Building a sensible monitoring schedule at once: the mechanism is plausible and the evidence for the size of the effect is thin. Most of the argument here is people defending the first against attacks on the second.
Time of day: some biomarkers vary across the day. Cortisol in the morning differs from cortisol in the evening. Comparing results from different times of day is comparing things that are not the same.
I would want to see it done twice before believing it once.
Adding the boring version of Building a sensible monitoring schedule, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.
The confident answers on Building a sensible monitoring schedule and the well-sourced answers are not the same answers, which is the most useful thing I have learned reading this category.
Post #26 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Glycaemic markers integrate over different periods. A point glucose and a longer-term marker disagreeing is not a contradiction; it is two different questions.
Two sources, same conclusion, and I could not rule out that one copied the other.
| Topic | Participants | Replies | Views | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Biological variation versus analytical imprecision — does this still hold?
The question in the title: Biological variation versus analytical imprecision — does this still hold? I will give what I have already checked below so nobody repeats it. The question about Biological…
|
2 | 1.8k | 8mo | |
|
Lipase elevation without symptoms: the interpretation problem
Lipase elevation without symptoms: the interpretation problem Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did. Lipase elevation without symptoms — I have the observation and…
|
+21 | 25 | 62k | 5mo |
|
eGFR fluctuation and the creatinine denominator problem — the long version
eGFR fluctuation and the creatinine denominator problem — the long version — setting out what I have, and where I think it stops being reliable. A narrow question about egfr fluctuation, deliberately narrow,…
|
+43 | 47 | 17k | just now |
|
Micronutrient status when intake falls substantially
On the subject in the title: Micronutrient status when intake falls substantially Working notes rather than a conclusion. Posting a small dataset on micronutrient status. It is mine, it is uncontrolled, and…
|
+26 | 30 | 367 | 11mo |
|
Reference intervals: how they are constructed and why one in twenty flags
Reference intervals: how they are constructed and why one in twenty flags — setting out what I have, and where I think it stops being reliable. Reference intervals: what I expected, what I found, and the gap…
|
+104 | 119 | 30k | 1mo |
| Topic | Participants | Replies | Views | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
About the Bloodwork category
Panels, reference intervals, biological variation, and resisting the urge to over-read one result. This post is a community wiki: any member at trust level 3 or above can edit it, and every edit is recorded…
|
+4 | 8 | 4.4k | 3mo |
|
[2026 update] Thyroid function tests during substantial weight change
Thyroid function tests during substantial weight change Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did. What changes if the standard account of Thyroid function tests during…
|
+69 | 74 | 4.5k | 2mo |
|
Lipase elevation without symptoms: the interpretation problem
Lipase elevation without symptoms: the interpretation problem Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did. Lipase elevation without symptoms — I have the observation and…
|
+21 | 25 | 62k | 5mo |
|
Second pass at: A single out-of-range value on an otherwise normal panel
Second pass at: A single out-of-range value on an otherwise normal panel Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did. General question, not a request for advice about my…
|
+9 | 13 | 8.5k | 16mo |
|
Reference intervals: how they are constructed and why one in twenty flags — does this still hold?
Asking directly, because I could not find a straight answer: Reference intervals: how they are constructed and why one in twenty flags — does this still hold? A methods question rather than a substantive one,…
|
+18 | 22 | 281 | 2h |