ThunderBird
Explorer
Everyone talks about the positives, but the negatives rarely get mentioned. If you've experienced the downsides, what showed up in your blood tests?
Anyone here had their lab results take a turn for the worse?
- Thread starter ThunderBird
- Start date
ThunderBird
Explorer
I don’t mean a broad pattern—you already said that’s normal with age, lol. What I’m getting at is more like this: you do bloodwork, follow a stack for 3 months, then test again. Did anything abruptly shift or move the wrong way? Something you didn’t anticipate or that came as an unintended result of your protocol. Sorry if I didn’t phrase the question clearly.
bada bing
Explorer
No
Twice in my life I've dropped 50+ lbs through diet alone, and once now with GLPs. Whenever I make a big lifestyle change, I go get bloodwork. What I see on GLP matches what happens with plain dieting — maybe even a bit better with GLP. With major weight loss, whichever route I took, my labs have shifted in a clearly positive direction. HbA1c and blood pressure in particular turn around fairly quickly. To a smaller degree, inflammation markers and blood lipids do too. My first go at losing weight by diet was a bargain I struck with my PCP so I wouldn't have to go on blood pressure meds. It works.
Having hard numbers that show you're making things better rather than messing them up is a good feeling.
Twice in my life I've dropped 50+ lbs through diet alone, and once now with GLPs. Whenever I make a big lifestyle change, I go get bloodwork. What I see on GLP matches what happens with plain dieting — maybe even a bit better with GLP. With major weight loss, whichever route I took, my labs have shifted in a clearly positive direction. HbA1c and blood pressure in particular turn around fairly quickly. To a smaller degree, inflammation markers and blood lipids do too. My first go at losing weight by diet was a bargain I struck with my PCP so I wouldn't have to go on blood pressure meds. It works.
Having hard numbers that show you're making things better rather than messing them up is a good feeling.
Builderman
Explorer
I've now been taking Reta for 4 weeks. My blood pressure started out in a pretty awful place — I'm significantly overweight and heart problems run in my family — but it has gotten much better. The systolic number fell by 35 and the diastolic fell by 29. On top of that, my resting heart rate went down 15bpm. I've also shed 15 pounds. So even if a few of my lab values ended up looking bad, the improvements I'm feeling in those areas would, in my view, easily outweigh any "bad" bloodwork.
RoadRash
Explorer
Sorry to let you down, but my lab results have gotten significantly better. The sole downside was my resting heart rate, which increased by 12-15 bpm. It has since decreased, though it remains above baseline.
jjplantgeek
Explorer
Six weeks into compounded tirz — that was October — I came clean to my doctor in December. His reaction? Not a fan. Apparently I didn't qualify as an obese patient, what with a BMI of 34.9 and a bodyweight of 277#. Still, he was willing to run bloodwork quarterly. October's baseline labs, the December follow-up, then February: my testosterone climbed 770 → 850 → 1040. Those numbers bothered him. He was sure the compounding pharmacy must be spiking the vials with testosterone. Never mind that every other marker on my panel had improved markedly. In his view the rising test was the worse outcome. I told him where to go and got myself a new doctor...
bada bing
Explorer
Quite a few physicians are personally using low dose Tirz even though they aren't obese or diabetic. The supporting data is fairly strong, though it's still far from being incorporated into formal guidelines. Keep in mind that with physicians, plenty of them personally do things they feel unable to acknowledge or suggest.
It would be amusing if "GLP1 agonist deficiency" could be listed as a contributing cause on death certificates, since in many instances that's accurate.
It would be amusing if "GLP1 agonist deficiency" could be listed as a contributing cause on death certificates, since in many instances that's accurate.
Meritocrat
Explorer
Following my gastric surgery, every one of my liver enzymes came back high. I was dealing with NAFLD, and a few months down the line those values normalized, as did other metabolic markers. However, the weight loss made certain other readings decline — testosterone, IGF-1, and so on. That said, the hernia could be the cause of it.
BNLFL
Explorer
Both my A1C and cholesterol levels went down. Another round of testing is coming up for me, and I have the doctor's paperwork needed to get it done.
ThatNextGril
Explorer
Same situation for me. I got my yearly blood panel drawn at the start of this month — it was originally scheduled for Nov, but I have a long-standing relationship with putting things off — and my doctor literally put exclamation points in her message saying my cholesterol looks excellent at this point! To be fair, the one number that remains annoyingly low is WBC, and it has stayed low for years. It isn't low enough that he feels the need to treat it with medication, yet it sits just beneath the reference range, and it's genuinely odd that this has persisted for roughly the past 4 years. (That's the reason I've begun injecting sermorelin, hoping it delivers what's promised on the label — or, to be more precise, the "vial".)
lastresort
Explorer
Absolutely. At this point, more gabagool is on the menu.
aRareUnicorn
Explorer
For 8 months, my cysteine, bicarbonate and sodium levels have stayed really low. Nothing else changed or got better.
bada bing
Explorer
Haha, that's likely to throw off anyone who isn't familiar with late 90's crime drama
woundcarping
Explorer
My folate dropped down to borderline low, so I'm taking a supplement for it now.
My B12 declined a little too, and I'm supplementing that as well.
HDL was never really high for me to begin with, but during cutting plus starting TRT, it's been sitting between 34-41mg/dl, and 40 is the lower end of the reference range.
Beyond that, every lab tied to weight loss looks excellent.
My B12 declined a little too, and I'm supplementing that as well.
HDL was never really high for me to begin with, but during cutting plus starting TRT, it's been sitting between 34-41mg/dl, and 40 is the lower end of the reference range.
Beyond that, every lab tied to weight loss looks excellent.
BNLFL
Explorer
Look below.
For my last 2 BT, my sodium has come back low. I had been taking in far too much water and washing out the good stuff. I've been having Gatorade Zero or 1/2 packet of Liquid IV. Both are 250mg. Taking 1/2 Liquid IV is also 250mg. I'm free to go for my next BT whenever I like.
aRareUnicorn
Explorer
Yeah, I now cap how much water I drink each day, load up on salty foods, and just cross my fingers.
I gave the plain electrolytes a shot, but they make me gag, and anything with sweetness is a total no-go (never could handle those drinks, and to me they taste even worse than the plain ones...)
Honestly, my dosage is still higher than it should be, but there's nothing I can do since I'm enrolled in a clinical trial, and it was already cut from 12 to 9mg...
After the trial ends, I'll have more say over my dosing, and with any luck, things will stabilize at that point...