Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Designated as the official “Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” October is the month of annual breast cancer screenings and provisional information distribution. Though scientists are getting closer to finding a cure for this disease, researchers aren’t there yet. As a result, rectifying October as “National Breast Cancer Awareness Month” is intended to provide individuals with the resources and information that they need to detect breast cancer, including forms of blood tests for breast cancer, mammograms, and routine self breast exams.
Importance of Early Breast Cancer Detection
One of the most fundamental steps that is necessary for limiting the effect that breast cancer has on one’s body includes participation in routine cancer detecting efforts, such as blood testing, lab tests, and detection of ca-125. In essence, knowing one’s risk is an essential step in prevention and early treatment, and this knowledge is facilitated by blood tests for breast cancer. Obtaining a blood test increases one’s chance of detecting early breast cancer. When cancer is detected early, individuals have a survival rate of 98% (http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/why-you-need-an-edp). Yet, 30% of individuals who are diagnosed with breast cancer don’t detect their condition until it has spread beyond the localized stage (http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/why-you-need-an-edp).
Methods of Breast Cancer Detection
One of the most simple forms of breast cancer detection is self breast exams. Notifying providers of any abnormalities can indicate probable cause for other lab test options. In addition, a ca-125 test is used to measure the amount of cancer antigen 125 in the blood. Though many different health conditions can cause varying results on the ca-125 test, it can also be useful in the detection of ovarian cancer. Alongside breast cancer and ovarian cancer, the ca-125 test can also detect endometrial and fallopian tube cancer, as well. In fact, this blood test is one of the most effective blood test for breast cancer options.
Blood Test Outlook
Though the ca-125 test is an innovative lab test that can detect one specific cancer antigen, the future for other blood testing options for breast cancer procedures appears promising. As of right now, no one blood test or lab test can detect the presence of breast or ovarian cancer. However, someday a lab test for cancer detection pertaining to early signs of breast or ovarian cancer is possible. A simple blood test for breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer may make early cancer detection more efficient and effective.
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Blood Testing For Optimal Health
Your blood offers a wealth of information and clues as to your overall health and well-being. Simple blood tests can tell you what’s currently happening in your body, what’s just starting to happen in your body, and sometimes what’s likely to happen in your body. In the past blood testing couldn’t be performed without a doctors order, but, thanks to online blood testing, anyone can take advantage of the knowledge lab work offers without a doctors order and costly visit to your primary physician.
Blood Test: Diagnose, Prevent, And Treat Yourself
Take a lipid panel as an example of the information a blood test offers you as lay person. This simple blood test looks at the various forms of cholesterol circulating within your blood. Too much LDL cholesterol and too little HDL cholesterol can cause your arteries to get clogged up (atherosclerosis) and can lead to a number of life-threatening diseases, including blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, and coronary heart disease. Lab testing can help you know your levels so that you can diagnosis, treat, and prevent the complications of high cholesterol.
Around 20% of strokes and over 50% of heart attacks are thought by the World Health Organization, or WHO, to be caused by high cholesterol. However, despite the importance of knowing your cholesterol levels when it comes to diagnosing and preventing heart disease and The American Heart Association recommending that everyone over age 20 get a cholesterol blood test, many people go without this important blood test. The same can be said for many other expensive lab testing that can help you know and better understand what’s going on inside your body so that you can seek acute or preventive treatment as soon as possible. Why?
I Have Trouble Getting Lab Testing With No Insurance, Little Insurance, And/Or Without A Doctors Order
Lab testing has been an integral part of diagnosing, screening, preventing and researching in the clinical setting since the 1920s, and today doctors have an array of over 3,000 lab tests at their disposal. However, in this day and age where millions of people either have no insurance, are under-insured; or are insured, but have such a difficult time getting around the red tape put up by HMOs and government-sponsored agencies that they might as well have no insurance, the importance of blood testing as a diagnostic and preventative health tool for patients to use themselves simply can’t be overlooked. You don’t need insurance to afford a lab test or a doctor’s order to obtain a lab test.
Use An Online Lab Test To Get Your Blood Test With No Insurance And Without A Doctors Order
Thanks to online channels like www.walkinlab.com providing lab testing, you can get discounts on a number of blood tests. This not only means that you spend less money getting a lab test, but that you also avoid the cost of seeing a doctor before, even after, getting tested. This enables you, as a person with no insurance or not enough insurance to afford all the blood tests you need, to ensure you’re current and future health. There’s no doctor order necessary, no long waits for the doctor’s office to finally get around to relaying your lab results to you, and no red tape to jump through or risk of your insurer asking for medical necessity.
Your Online Lab Test Is Private and Confidential
Another benefit to utilizing online blood testing is the privacy and confidentiality. Many patients feel too embarrassed to discuss delicate issues with their doctor or fear someone in the doctor’s office seeing their chart and potentially breaching their privacy. They, therefore, often go without certain blood testing that could make them a happier, safer, and healthier person. Take a problem with your sex hormone levels as an example. This could be the cause of symptoms of depression, obesity, poor memory, lethargy, or lack of sex-drive. Another example would be embarrassing STD testing. With online blood testing, the same HIPAA and privacy policies apply with online blood work as it does if you walk in to your doctor’s office. You can feel 100% safe and at ease with online blood testing.
Your health today and tomorrow is too important not to take advantage of online blood testing. Whether you’re without a doctors order or just want to save some time, money, and comfort by using the discrete services of an online blood testing agency, you shouldn’t pass up the opportunity online blood testing provides for your health and well-being.
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Blood Testing for Heart Health
Cardiovascular disease has been called a silent killer because the condition can develop over time without a person experiencing obvious system. The circulatory system is the the part of the body that governs heart health. A blood test for heart health can reveal changes in the circulatory system and alert physicians that a patient may be in danger of developing cardiovascular disease.
When people order blood tests online, they are taking a positive steps to determine if they have signs of possible disease. Lab tests are a routine step physicians take to assess a person’s health status. Blood testing is an established and accepted protocol for screening for possible disease.
A lipid profile, measuring the bloods cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and C-reactive protein levels are two reliable blood testing protocols established by medical science to detect potential cardiovascular pathology. Even in the absence of active symptoms, lab tests reveal when worrisome conditions are present that may adversely effect a person’s health. As a reliable tool for prognosis, a blood test for heart health notifies physicians and patients that treatment may be required to correct a condition before it causes an active disease process. Early detection is the key to preventing heart conditions. Based on the results, physicians can recommend lifestyle changes or prescribe medication to correct troubling changes in the blood.
The ability to order blood tests online has never been easier. Many physicians and some commercial insurance carriers recommend that people take advantage of the latest technology to take charge of their healthcare. This includes monitoring blood levels for cholesterol, triglycerides, C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, homocystiene levels, lipoprotein, and natriuretic peptides. While a layperson cannot be expected to know how to interpret the results reliably, a licensed physician can review the data in conjunction with a thorough physical examination and review of the patient’s history. With this information in hand, professional recommendations can prevent and preclude active heart disease, potentially increasing lifespan and improving a patient’s quality of life.
Blood testing allows for early detection of heart disease before it is symptomatic. By making lifestyle changes, especially changes in diet and exercise, people can benefit from professional advise based on the lab tests’ results. By taking a proactive approach to their health, using the latest medical technology, people can live more active and satisfying lives without worry that a silent killer may be stalking them while they are unaware.
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Blood Testing for Sickle Cell Disease
Sickle cell disease affects mainly African and Mediterranean descendants. It does appear in other area like the Middle East, South and Central America and the Caribbean.
Sickle cell disease is inherited. If both parents carry the gene, the child will develop sickle cell anemia. If only one parent has the gene, the child will have the trait, but will show no symptoms of the disease.
A blood test determines if the patient has the sickle cell disease or is a carrier of the disease. From the lab test, the blood cells of a person with sickle cell disease will present with red blood cells that are deformed. Healthy red blood cells should be round and carry the much-needed blood throughout the body.
If the blood test determines sickle cell disease, the red blood cells are crescent shaped or also known as sickle shaped. This is due to an abnormal protein in the hemoglobin called hemoglobin S. The normal hemoglobin is called hemoglobin A. Sickle blood cells do not hold up well as regular cells do, which causes the body to destroy the sickle cells quicker. This of course, leads to anemia and is diagnosed with a blood test. If left untreated, there is far more damage to the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, bones and muscles that make an undiagnosed case fatal at an early age.
Luckily, today, all babies born in all 50 states of America have a simple blood test taken from the heel of the baby at birth. It can diagnose whether the baby has normal hemoglobin or if there is abnormal hemoglobin in the lab test.
Under normal circumstances, babies do not present with any symptoms until after the age of 4 months. Lab test can be administered again at this stage to determine how serious the sickle cell disease is.
Some of the tests for diagnosis and monitoring the progression of sickle cell disease in the patients include:
* Bilirubin
* Serum creatinine
* Sickle cell lab test
* CBC blood test
* Hemoglobin electrophoresis lab test
* Serum potassium blood test
Treatment consists of managing and controlling the painful symptoms with medication and trying to reduce the number of crises a patient may have. One of the most important factors in stopping this disease is through genetic testing and counseling to help couples cope with the possibility of not having children if they both carry the gene for this dreadful disease.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month