Blood Drug Testing

Help with Blood test results - blood chemistry/cholesterol, etc?

I just got some blood test results back in the mail and had 4 "abnormal" scores. I have an appointment with my doctor on the 7th of August, but I'm a little nervous about the results and was wondering if anyone on here could give me any insight. My thyroid function was abnormal. I'm not too shocked about this because I've had hypothyroidism in the past, but since I had my son, five years ago, it's been back to normal (though it was last tested two years ago). My "Blood Chemistry" was listed as abnormal. What could this mean? My cholesterol was abnormal. LDL is 118 and HDL is 41. I thought the LDL was ok, if not good, but I'm concerned about the HDL. And my triglycerides are abnormal at 177. I am overweight, so I expected these to not be optimal, but how bad are they? Oh, and it said HgA1c is normal, but I have no idea what that is or what it measures. Anyone have any idea? The blood chemistry thing has me worried, too. I guess because I don't know what it could indicate. If it was something really abnormal or serious, the doctor would have called, right?

Public Comments

1. LDL is the bad cholesterol, HDL is the good one. You want the HDL to be higher than the LDL. (I remember it by L = you want it to be Low, H = you want it to be High.) The triglycerides (a component of cholesterol) are also high. These can be helped by diet, but you'll have better, faster results with a prescription "statin" drug like Lipitor or Zorcor, etc. The HgA1C measures how well diabetes is controlled. Since you say yours was normal, you either control your diabetes well or aren't diabetic. As for the thyroid function tests, you didn't give any specifics. The TSH is the thyroid stimulating harmone, the one that signals your body to produce the thyroid harmone. In mild (even severe) hypothyroidism, this often works "overtime" telling your body to produce more (and the TSH is high). The others (T3, T4, etc.) are a measure of how much harmone is actually produced, and yours is probably low. This can be remedied with a drug like "synthroid" or "levothyroxine" which is just a synthetic harmone. I don't see anything that is alarming, it just needs to be treated and will wait until your doctor's appointment. Try to relax, it's unlikely to cause harm until then. : ) Good luck, hope this helped! Edit: Feel free to email me with more specific or additional questions.
2. HDL is the good cholesterol. Blood chemistry probably says abnormal for the same reason as cholesterol. So that's probably 1 abnormality causing two tests to be abnormal. Maybe the HgA1c is a thyroid thing? Not sure what it means.