Saturday, August 22, 2015

8.20.15 Since you asked...blood tests


 

Since you asked...Yes, blood tests and other tests are valuable. But just think about it for a minute. Ten years ago, twenty, our science had nailed some testing and not others. Sixty years ago we X-rayed infants thymuses because 'we' thought they were overdeveloped (big oops). Ten years ago every woman was pressured to be on HRT to protect their heart, and protect them from breast cancer, til the early results came in and it turned out it promoted the probability of both. Now we have testing that in some ways is pretty amazing. It will be more amazing in five years, and ten, etc. In the meantime, it does not measure everything. Can we stop for a second and get the logic of that? Tests measure some things very well.
     They don't tell us if everything is a-o-k, or if something lousy is coming down the pike. The year before someone gets a very serious cancer diagnosis, their blood work is often peachy. Even a few months before.
     Blood work does not measure SUBCLINICAL conditions or challenges. So for every health challenge, or eventually 'condition', there is a period of time when it is developing in seriousness, and nothing is showing up.
     Most probably as time goes on, testing will become more and more intricate (and oftentimes more invasive, so its a good idea to motivate yourself to find out the estimated cost of any particular testing.)

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