Let's face it ... lab tests are expensive. Other types of testing can also be expensive, like paying for the time of a practitioner that does some kind of kinesiological testing or other type of energy-based testing.
If you've been dealing with any health issues for a while and have spent money on lab tests, you might have developed resistance to doing more testing. You might heve even become disillusioned and lost trust in the value of lab tests.
But it's important to realize a few key things about lab testing that make it one of the most important tools you can use for your health. Without a healthy relationship with lab testing, you can make costly mistakes on your health journey. So it's essential to adopt an empowering mindset about lab testing. I will get back to the matter of mindset toward the end of this post. First, let's explore some examples where testing demonstrated its value ...
Graves Disease or Hashimoto's Thyroiditis?
One of my clients told me that she had been diagnosed with Graves disease, which typically causes symptoms of hyperthyroidism. She sent me the lab tests that showed slightly elevated antibodies associated with Graves disease. And her thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was very low, while her thyroid hormones were in the high end of the normal range. All of this was consistent with a diagnosis of Graves disease.
But when I looked at the symptoms she reported on the detailed thyroid symptoms assessment that is part of my assessment process, she had a lot of hypothyroid symptoms. So it seemed that she had a mix of both hyperthyroid and hypothyroid issues going on, which is actually common in Hashimoto's thyroiditis yet rare in Graves disease.
So I asked her to have her doctor run a test of the antibodies associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. A couple of weeks later, she sent me the results, saying "You were correct." The test showed very high thyroperoxidase antibodies and thyroglobulin antibodies, the two types of antibodies associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
So testing revealed that her condition was far more strongly Hashimoto's thyroiditis than Graves disease. And the differences between Hashimoto's and Graves affect the treatment choices. So it's a very good thing that the additional antibody tests were run.
Neuroinflammation or Phenol Sensitivity?
One of my clients was experiencing symptoms that seemed to reflect a lot of neuroinflammation. Since he was taking a while to complete the lab tests that we ordered for him, and I wanted him to start experiencing some symptom relief, I recommended a product based on luteolin because luteolin is generally helpful with neuroinflammation.
But the first time he took the product, he got insomnia, which rarely happens to him. Then shortly thereafter I received the results of his organic acids test. It revealed an elevated ratio of dopamine to norepinephrine and epinephrine, which can cause a variety of symptoms, including insomnia.
The test also showed that his urine contained an elevated level of phenols produced by a type of bacteria that can overgrow (usually in the small intestine). And the organic acids test showed that he had an overgrowth of these phenol-producing bacteria.
Phenols impede the function of the enzyme that converts dopamine to norepinephrine and epinephrine. So this can cause an elevated ratio of dopamine to norepinephrine and epinephrine.
To remove excess phenols from the body, a phase 2 detoxification process called sulfation attaches sulfate to phenols so that they can be deactivated and excreted. But this requires sulfate, and this client had a slow version of the enzyme called sulfite oxidase that converts sulfite to sulfate. This potentially limits his supply of sulfate and ability to use sulfation to process and excrete excess phenols.
Luteolin and other ingredients in the supplement that I recommended for him are polyphenols and add to the phenol pool in the body. So this client had phenols from gut bacteria, probably low sulfate and sulfation capacity to process them, and then the supplement I recommended added more phenols to the picture, probably pushing his elevated dopamine to norepinephrine and epinephrine ratio higher.
Most people derive benefit from polyphenols, but if a person cannot process phenols, then phenols can accumulate and cause an issue like the neurotransmitter imbalance caused by not enough dopamine getting converted to norepinephrine and epinephrine.
The issue of phenol sensitivity caused by gut-derived bacterial phenols and/or a slow sulfite oxidase enzyme is not super common, but it's not rare either. I have had two such clients.
Treat Candida or Bacterial Dysbiosis?
The client from the previous example also had several indicators of Candidiasis. This often goes along with overgrowth of those phenol-producing bacteria. Frequently Candida overgrowth cannot be resolved until the bacterial overgrowth is handled. And once bacteral issue is eliminated, Candidiasis often resolves on its own.
If we had not run the organic acids test (a certain one that includes markers of bacterial overgrowth) and had only tested for Candida, we could have wasted a lot of time, money, and emotional energy treating Candida without realizing that we first needed to treat the bacterial problem.
Dysbiosis or Hidden Gluten Exposure?
People with symptoms in the gut that give them a diagnosis like "irritable bowel syndrome" might be given a stool test to identify imbalances of bacterial species in the digestive tract. Such bacterial imbalances are referred to as "dysbiosis". But if a stool test stops there, it could be missing other factors that could be even more important in explaining a person's symptoms.
For example, quite often clients with or without gut symptoms show high levels of antibodies in their stool to a component of wheat gluten called gliadin but did not realize that their immune system is reacting to it. Or if the client did know they had a gluten sensitivity, they usually thought they were doing a good job of avoiding gluten.
This is compounded by the fact that eight out of nine people with gluten sensitivity do not experience symptoms in the gut. Their symptoms occur outside of the gut as anxiety, depression, brain fog, skin issues, muscle pain, or other symptoms that they would never think to connect to gluten.
Lyme, Heavy Metals, Mold, or Something Else?
Approximately 90% of the symptoms of Lyme disease and heavy metal toxicity are the same. So this is another example where testing can be important, even though Lyme disease organisms are notoriously hard to detect with blood tests.
There is also a lot of symptom overlap between mold, general environmental illness, Lyme disease, and heavy metals. So it's hard to sort out just by looking at symptoms. Fortunately, there are testing strategies that can help to distinguish between these conditions.
And new strategies can make Lyme testing more reliable. One such method is using ultrasound on symptomatic parts of the body before drawing blood for a test. The ultrasound drives the organisms out of cells so that they can be detected in a blood test. Lower tech methods of flushing Lyme spirochetes out of cells may also accomplish the same thing.
Since Lyme disease is usually a multi-pathogen illness, it is often essential to know which pathogens are present since each one requires different types of treatments. And this requires testing of some sort, whether it is lab testing, kinesiological testing, or bioenergetic testing.
No method of testing is perfect, but that does not mean you should give up on testing. Just find a good guide to testing and adopt an empowering "testing mindset".
The Testing Mindset
It's best to view lab tests as an opportunity to gain valuable data, not as an onerous burden that could waste money. The latter is a very counterproductive mindset, yet this is the way many people view lab testing. If this is how you view lab testing, then I strongly encourage you to change that. And here's why ...
First, you should expect some lab tests to show normal results ("negative" for a particular issue you are testing). And it's a good thing when test results are normal / negative because it means that you have probably ruled something out (though there can be false negative test results). It does not mean that the money was wasted on the test.
Again, normal test results can tell us what the problem is not, and that is very useful. However, I often find clues in clients' past lab tests that other practitioners considered totally normal. There are very few totally "normal" lab test results in people that have health challenges.
Second, do not give up after just a few tests. You should commit to continue looking for clues about the cause(s) of your condition so that you can target things with the right treatment. Thorough lab testing can cost several thousand dollars, but the data obtained is one of the keys to breakthroughs in understanding your health challenges and reversing them.
The cost of testing pales in comparison to the alternative. The alternative to testing is typically to spend a lot of time and money focused on the wrong things. The alternative to testing is often to continue to have health challenges that can result in higher medical costs overall (e.g. doctor visits, drugs, and surgery). Continuing health challenges can result in loss of income or even bankruptcy.
Although you can sometimes successfully treat health issues without clues from lab tests, you will likely need to go through more trial and error in the treatment process, and this can become tedious and sometimes even demoralizing and demotivating.
Having clear therapeutic targets makes things a lot easier pragmatically and psychologically. Knowing what is actually going on in your body also helps avoid mistakes that waste money or even make a condition worse.
How Much Testing Should You Do?
The examples in this post illustrate why I nudge my clients to do as much testing as possible. We should not be guessing and basing recommendations only upon symptoms because it can lead to selecting the wrong approaches, which ultimately wastes money (e.g. on the wrong supplements) and can cause unpleasant experiences like the insomnia my client experienced from the supplement I thought would help him with his brain-related symptoms. Instead, it gave him a new symptom! (temporarily)
You've probably heard the functional medicine advice of "test, don't guess." But how much testing should you do? The simple answer is to run as much testing as it takes to develop sufficient clarity about what is causing your symptoms and how to approach treatment.
Which Tests Should You Run?
There are multiple types of tests. There are lab tests, kinesiological ("muscle") testing methods, and bioenergetic devices that can test your energy field remotely via the physical principles of quantum entanglement and nonlocality. Each has its place, but my preference is to rely mostly on functional lab tests.
Some lab tests are generally applicable to most people, like tests of gut function, organic acids, adrenal and sex hormones, heavy metals, minerals, vitamins, and essential fatty acids. But after that it starts getting more specific to the person.
Should you run an expanded set of grain-related antibodies? An amino acids panel? A methylation panel? Mycotoxins and/or organic pollutants? Thyroid hormones and antibodies? Other autoimmunity antibodies? Inflammatory cytokines? Pyroluria and/or porphyria? Etc.
Even if you know a lot about testing, it is essential to collaborate with somebody who knows lab testing and has a good framework for thinking about testing. Otherwise you can get stuck in a loop created by your unconscious biases about the cause(s) of your health issues.
Prior to working with me, none of my clients had done all seven of the most essential and well-known functional lab tests that I consider for all of my clients (gut function, adrenal and sex hormones, organic acids, heavy metals, minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids). This has been the case even with clients who are experienced in the health game and have worked with many other practitioners.
A practitioner's ability to choose the right tests has a lot to do with the framework they use to think about health challenges. If they are a Lyme disease specialist, a mold toxicity specialist, a hormones specialist, etc, their focus generally reduces the range of tests that they think about. They often overlook the fundamentals and are not versed in tests outside of their specialty that may be relevant.
So you might be better off with a well-educated generalist with a broad framework for understanding health challenges. If you would like to take a look at the framework that I use to choose tests and to guide a path to addressing what we find through testing, download the Bio-Individual Blueprint Roadmap and watch the walkthrough video.