more blood test results

[redbird]

I just got automatic notifications of blood test results. Everything in the hepatic function panel is normal. There's one number slightly outside the reference range in the complete blood count.

In addition to the hepatic function panel and complete blood count tests that I knew my neurologist was ordering, he had them run a covid antibody test. The automated report on that is so full of disclaimers that I am wondering why he bothered ordering it:

The explanation notes explicitly that the clinical significance of either a positive or negative test in people who have received a covid vaccine is unknown.

I told Dr. AbdelRazek that I didn't want to pay for unnecessary tests, and after a little discussion decided that it did make sense to have the CBC now rather than waiting four months. But this covid antibody test feels like a perfect example of an unnecessary test: they don't know what a positive result would mean, they don't know what a negative result means, and I have no relevant symptoms. (The result was negative.)

Comments

[gatheringrivers]

TIL the antibody test is now some level of mass production, lol...

Does this or this help at all?

[minnehaha]

Happy Birthday, as shared with Darling Daughter, and thus easy to remember.

K.

[redbird]

Thank you.

[lauradi7dw]

Not about a blood test, but in the neighborhood of unnecessary in the end. This doctor is complaining that imaging is often ordered to confirm or rule out a suspected problem, but in many cases the radiologists won't commit, so the test is a waste, at best. Or that's what I took from it, relating to an experience my mother had earlier this year. Blood teats suggested that it was not bacterial pneumonia, as feared, but the person who read the cheat x-ray said "it cannot be ruled out," so she was given a couple of weeks of antibiotics, probably for nothing.
https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/06/its-time-for-radiologists-to-stop-hedging.html