Blood tests how often?

[mcelliott]

As per title, how often should you get your blood work checked. Last year I started suffering really bad anxiety which threw up some weird and wonderful physical symptoms, as a precaution my Dr ordered some blood tests to be done, everything came back fine, physically I feel great, diet and sleep all on point, is it worth getting a repeat test done as a precaution or leave for a while longer. I'm 48 by the way

[The_Doc]

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-screening/

Screening / Tests

Useful if done well. Troublesome and expensive if done badly.

Seek help for anxiety, not blood tests

[smiffy180]

For me I do 3-4x a year because I'm on TRT.
I'd say yearly though if your Dr's are good, twice if they're really good or go private.
Gives a good indication as to what's going on internally even if you feel fine.

[leef44]

If you have no specific health conditions then at 48 I would say once a year is about right.

Although I do have several health conditions, I still only do this once a year except when I am called to do so due to medication check.

[ukwill]

You can very easily fall into a health anxiety trap if you start worrying about the frequency of blood tests if you are in otherwise good health.

Anxiety can be a horribly crafty bd in terms of somatic symptoms. Maybe some cbt to help you with the feelings you may be getting for wanting annual blood tests?

[mcelliott]

Thanks everyone, everything taken on board.

[Glosphil]

Medicaation check with GP every 6 months. Heart Nurse every 3 months. Kidney specialist every 4 months. Heart specialist yearly. All expect recent blood test results.
Trying to arrange blood tests close enough to each appointment, and timing the appointments is an 'interesting' task.

[anonymous-user]

smiffy180 said:

For me I do 3-4x a year because I'm on TRT.
I'd say yearly though if your Dr's are good, twice if they're really good or go private.
Gives a good indication as to what's going on internally even if you feel fine.

I think this is poor advice. Telling someone their dr isn’t good if they’re not carrying out annual or bi-annual bloods isn’t fair. The system could not, and IMO doesn’t need to cope, with this quantity of tests.

[leef44]

Badda said:

smiffy180 said:

For me I do 3-4x a year because I'm on TRT.
I'd say yearly though if your Dr's are good, twice if they're really good or go private.
Gives a good indication as to what's going on internally even if you feel fine.

I think this is poor advice. Telling someone their dr isn’t good if they’re not carrying out annual or bi-annual bloods isn’t fair. The system could not, and IMO doesn’t need to cope, with this quantity of tests.

Agreed that if everyone was to do blood test twice a year then the NHS would be overwhelmed and would not be able to cope. It would slow down the response time for those more urgent needs in pathology.

However, once over 50, GP recommend having it done once a year together with blood pressure because of higher risk of various conditions (high cholesterol, diabetes, liver and kidney conditions). The idea being that catching things early and putting people on medication will reduce NHS hospital demand further down the line.

But again this is based on health conditions. A very fit healthy person may consider only once every two years.

At 48, it depends on your health. If overweight or unfit or often out of breath, or already having underlying health conditions then maybe that's the time to start once a year blood test.

[The_Doc]

Sorry, but this is very misleading and inaccurate in places

Healthcare is not about going and requesting tests that you think you need. Go if you have symptoms.

The UK has a well defined screening program to do unprompted tests, and you should stick to it.

Why? Because how are you going to deal with the false positives, how are you going to deal with the false negatives? What about the accuracy and who can counsel you on the implications of further investigations and the anxiety you will have.

EG: here's a page on why random, patient requested, non screening program PSA blood tests are troublesome: https://www.theprostatecentre.com/prostate-informa...
It's 9 paragraphs long and has 2 graphs.

and here's something from the (usually totally test-happy and overspending) Americans:

page said:

The United States Preventive Services Task Force has analyzed the data from all reported prostate cancer screening trials, principally from the PLCO and ERSPC trials, and estimated that, for every 1,000 men ages 55 to 69 years who are screened every 1 to 4 years for 10 to 15 years (7):

About 1 death from prostate cancer would be avoided
120 men would have a false-positive test result that leads to a biopsy, and some men who get a biopsy would experience at least moderately bothersome symptoms from the biopsy
100 men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Of those, 80 would be treated (either immediately or after a period of active surveillance) with surgery or radiation. At least 60 of these men would have a serious complication from treatment, such as erectile dysfunction and/or urinary incontinence.

Loads of nasty side effects

Go to your GP with symptoms, follow the free national screening program

"I feel funny, can I have my yearly blood tests?"
"Well your gammaGT is elevated so would should send you for a liver biopsy, and your PSA was up a bit, so get ready for permanent eractile dysfunction after the transanal biopsy"

Less tests, less anxiety. Take your symptoms to your GP

Here is the 5 yearly Health Check info with blood tests therin for over 40s to aged 74 : https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-health-check/wha...

Edited by The_Doc on Wednesday 7th October 16:13