Your Lab Panel, Explained

14 hours ago

5 min read

If you've booked the Total Package at NuYou Wellness — or you're thinking about it — you might be wondering what exactly gets drawn and why we order so much.

Labs are only one piece of the puzzle. We look at them alongside your symptoms, history, current medications, hormones, supplements, sleep, stressors, environment, nutrition, movement, and mental health to build a complete picture. But the panel itself is thorough — 50+ individual values — and every marker is there for a reason. Here's what we're looking at and what we're looking for.

Complete Blood Count (CBC)

Before we look at hormones, we want to know what's happening in your blood. The CBC gives us a full picture of your red cells, white cells, and platelets — and flags anemia, one of the most common and underdiagnosed reasons for fatigue, cold intolerance, and brain fog. These are symptoms that often get blamed on thyroid or hormones first. We rule this out before we treat anything else.

Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP)

14 markers covering blood sugar, kidney function, liver function, and electrolytes. This gives us a baseline for how your organs are handling everything — especially important before starting any medications — and catches early blood sugar dysregulation that can drive weight gain, fatigue, and mood swings long before it shows up as a diagnosis.

Thyroid Panel

A standard TSH alone misses too much. We run the full panel because symptoms live in the details.

TSH — The signal your brain sends to your thyroid. Standard screening, but a "normal" TSH doesn't mean your thyroid is actually doing its job.
Free T3 — The active form of thyroid hormone your cells actually use. Many providers never check this. Low Free T3 explains why patients feel hypothyroid even when TSH looks fine.
Free T4 — The storage form that converts to T3. Low Free T4 with a normal TSH is a pattern that gets missed constantly.
TPO Antibodies — Immune markers that attack the thyroid. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is the most common autoimmune disease in women and frequently goes undiagnosed. You can have it with a "normal" TSH for years. Knowing this changes the treatment approach entirely.
Thyroglobulin Antibodies — A second autoimmune marker. Some patients test negative for TPO but positive for thyroglobulin. Running both catches what one alone misses.

Metabolic & Nutritional Markers

Hormones don't work in isolation — and neither does metabolism. These markers tell us what's driving symptoms underneath the surface.

HgbA1c — Your average blood sugar over 2–3 months. A single fasting glucose can look fine while your A1c tells a different story. Elevated A1c is directly tied to weight resistance, energy crashes, and inflammation.
Vitamin D — Functions more like a hormone than a vitamin. Most Alaskans are deficient. Low Vitamin D is linked to depression, fatigue, immune dysfunction, and poor hormone conversion. We optimize this, not just treat deficiency.
Ferritin — Your iron storage protein, and the most sensitive marker for iron deficiency. Low ferritin causes hair loss, fatigue, and poor thyroid hormone conversion even when everything else looks normal. The lab's "normal" range is often too low to actually feel good.
Fasting Insulin — Elevated fasting insulin indicates insulin resistance — often present for years before A1c or glucose becomes abnormal. This is the earliest warning sign we can act on.
Fasting Lipid Panel (FLP) — Total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides. Hormones directly affect lipid levels. We use this as a baseline and monitor as we optimize.

Hormone Panel

This is where we get specific. Hormones interact with everything above — and with each other. We don't look at any single value in isolation.

FSH & LH — The brain signals that control your ovaries and cycle. These give us important clues about where you are in the hormonal transition — perimenopause, menopause, or somewhere in between. They're not always a precise answer on their own, but combined with your symptoms and the rest of your panel, they help us treat what's actually happening.
DHEAS — The adrenal androgen precursor, a building block for estrogen and testosterone. Declines with age and under chronic stress. Low DHEAS is tied to fatigue, low libido, poor mood, and reduced resilience.
Estradiol (E2) — The primary and most potent estrogen. Drives mood, sleep, skin, bone density, libido, and brain function. Both high and low estradiol cause symptoms — and the ratio to progesterone matters just as much as the absolute number.
Progesterone — The calming, sleep-supporting counterpart to estrogen. Progesterone deficiency is the most common hormonal imbalance in perimenopause and is frequently missed. Low progesterone causes anxiety, poor sleep, heavy periods, and estrogen dominance symptoms even when estrogen itself looks normal.
Total Testosterone — Testosterone isn't just a male hormone. Women need it for energy, motivation, muscle maintenance, libido, and mental clarity. Low testosterone in women is common and significantly undertreated.
SHBG — A protein that binds testosterone (and estrogen) and makes it unavailable to your cells. High SHBG means your total testosterone can look fine on paper while very little is actually getting to your tissues.
Free Testosterone (Calculated) — The testosterone your body can actually use, calculated from total testosterone and SHBG. This is the number that actually predicts symptoms. A woman with low free testosterone will feel it — fatigue, flat mood, low drive — even if her total is technically in range.

A Word on Reference Ranges

Your results will show a reference range — the broad window the lab considers "normal." But normal on paper isn't the same as optimal for how you feel. Many patients with real symptoms have labs that fall within range but near the low or high end, where function starts to suffer. We don't just check whether you're in range — we look at where you fall, how your markers relate to each other, and most importantly, how you actually feel. That's what drives treatment.

Why All of It?

Most panels check 4–6 markers. We run 50+ because hormones don't work in isolation — thyroid affects estrogen metabolism, insulin resistance drives testosterone imbalance, low ferritin tanks thyroid conversion, and Vitamin D touches all of it. We need the full picture to treat you, not just your labs.

Your results are reviewed before your visit, so we walk in ready to talk about what we found — not schedule a follow-up to discuss them later.

Ready to See What Your Labs Actually Say?

Book the Total Package and come in with answers — not more questions. Your panel is drawn at Labcorp, reviewed before your visit, and we walk in ready to talk.

Book the Total Package → In Office or via Telemedicine

Fasting required: nothing by mouth except water for 8–12 hours before your draw. Morning draw is best. Results take approximately 5 business days. Labs are ordered through Labcorp at $199 cash pay.

Stop all biotin-containing supplements (including hair, skin, and nail vitamins) at least 72 hours before your draw. Biotin interferes with thyroid and hormone assays and can cause falsely abnormal results.