During a recent visit to your health care provider’s office, you had blood drawn for lab tests and now you want to know if everything is “okay.” You’ve received a copy of your lab report or an email telling you that your test results are available to view online. So you log on to the secure site and download your results. In scanning the page, you see a result that is highlighted as being outside the reference range and you wonder what that means for you.<\/p>\n
Some lab tests provide a simple “yes” or “no” answer. For instance, was the test positive for the bacteria that cause strep throat? Many other tests, however, are reported as numbers or values. Laboratory test results reported as numbers are not meaningful by themselves. Their meaning comes from comparison to reference values. Reference values are the values expected for a healthy person. They are sometimes called “normal” values.<\/p>\n
By comparing your test results with reference values, you and your health care provider can see if any of your test results fall outside the range of expected values. Values that are outside expected ranges can provide clues to help identify possible conditions or diseases.<\/p>\n
This website, Testing.com, gives information about various tests, including the possible reasons test results may be “abnormal.”<\/p>\n
Three important things to know about reference ranges:<\/p>\n
A reference range is a set of values that includes upper and lower limits of a lab test based on a group of otherwise healthy people. By comparing your test results with reference values, you and your health care provider can see if any of your test results fall outside the range of expected values and gain clues to help identify possible conditions or diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","tags":[],"keyword":[11161],"class_list":["post-4503","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","keyword-featured"],"acf":{"city":"","state":""},"yoast_head":"\n