On post #7 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification. The most useful thing anyone has posted about Getting a referral in this category was a table of what had been measured and by whom. That is what I would want again.
Posting this under the heading it deserves: Getting a referral rather than a refusal Everything below is what sits behind that.
Working notes on Getting a referral rather than a conclusion. I would rather post the reasoning while it can still be corrected than post the answer once I am committed to it.
Everything below is checkable. Where I have taken a figure from somewhere else I have said where; where I have estimated, I have said that too.
Two claims get bundled together under Getting a referral and they need separating. The descriptive one — this is what was observed — is usually well supported. The causal one — this is why — usually is not.
Almost every disagreement in threads like this one dissolves once you say which of the two you are making.
A question phrased as "what would you want to see before considering X" is answerable and is not a request for X.
I would rather this thread reach "we do not know" about Getting a referral than reach a confident answer that nobody can support when asked.
Agreed, and I will stop repeating the version of this I had been repeating.
On post #7 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
The most useful thing anyone has posted about Getting a referral in this category was a table of what had been measured and by whom. That is what I would want again.
For anyone finding this later: the short answer on Getting a referral is that it depends on one thing, and the rest of the thread is people identifying which thing.
Answering the question post #7 raises rather than the one it answers.
Bringing a record of symptoms with dates and severities makes an assessment materially easier and is the single most useful preparation.
Taking post #9 at face value and following it one step further.
Nothing here is medical advice, and this subcategory exists to help people ask better questions rather than to answer them.
That has held every time I have looked, which is not the same as always.
Adding a small correction to the Getting a referral summary above rather than a disagreement with it. The substance holds; one of the figures is out by a factor that matters.
A question phrased as "what would you want to see before considering X" is answerable and is not a request for X.
The version of Getting a referral that I was taught turned out to be a teaching simplification. Useful, and not true in the way I had assumed it was.
Bringing a record of symptoms with dates and severities makes an assessment materially easier and is the single most useful preparation.
A question phrased as "what would you want to see before considering X" is answerable and is not a request for X.
Not disagreeing with anyone above, just adding the bit I keep having to look up.
Prescription logistics: confirm whether it will be filled locally, requires mail order, or will be prescribed off-label and needs a compounding pharmacy. Different paths have different implications.
I have kept the units in throughout, for the obvious reason.
Answering the question post #25 raises rather than the one it answers.
Careful with the language on Getting a referral. "Not detected" and "not present" are different findings and the first is a statement about the method.
Post #26 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Bringing a published document rather than a summary changes the conversation. Bringing a forum thread does not.
Adding a source would improve this post and I do not have one to hand.
I would keep Getting a referral and the decision it usually gets used for separate in this thread. They are related and they are not the same question, and merging them is why the last one went badly.
Bringing a record of symptoms with dates and severities makes an assessment materially easier and is the single most useful preparation.