Yearly Biometric Screening

A couple of weeks ago, I made my yearly doctor visit. Let’s be honest here. I really only make this visit because my company insurance knocks off $50 bucks each month from my health insurance premium. Over the course of a year, this $50 bucks translated into several pairs running shoes.  To a runner, running shoes are like gold, and who doesn’t need a little extra gold in their closet.

Anyway, yesterday, my results came in the mail.

With anything like this, I was trying to make sense of them. What might have been truly helpful is if I had my results from my last year’s test, but I didn’t. Since this visit occurs about the same time each year, I looked back to my blog post from last year.  

Overall the doctor said my labs looked great.

My Cholesterol level was 159 which was about 9 points higher than last year.

My HDL level was 54 which lower than the expected level of 60.

My LDL level was 90 which was good because the expected range needs to be less than 100.

My BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen) test was higher than the norm of 8 -20. My level was 22. Okay, so when I find that I am not in the norm, I go searching the internet for the answer or possibly the excuse. Having a high protein diet (could be my large veggie diet) or dehydration, hum, maybe I should have drunk more water that morning. After all, I did hammer a big workout the same morning.  For sure, I was dehydrated because my weight was 144.

My glucose level was 83 which is on the low range. Again, it was post my workout. Okay, cut me some slack here. They just said that I couldn’t eat for the 12 hours leading up to my test. They said nothing about not running myself into the ground before the test. LOL.  

My sodium level was in the high range at 142. Not real sure if this was good or bad. It was on the high range.

My potassium level was 4.3 which was right in the middle of the range.

My Tryiglycerides level was 76 which was way less than the 150. Some additional reading says that I want this one to be low.

My CO2 levels were 29 for a range of 22-32. I wonder if the residual of lactic acid in the blood can effect this value.

So many questions and so few answers, education is a lifelong process.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner