{"id":42,"date":"2026-08-14T11:47:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/2026\/08\/14\/reading-your-blood-test-results\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:47:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:17:05","slug":"reading-your-blood-test-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/2026\/08\/14\/reading-your-blood-test-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading your blood test results without panicking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">A value printed in bold is not a diagnosis. Here is how our pathology team actually reads the numbers you see on your results letter.<\/p><h3 class=\"mt-4 mb-3\">Reference ranges are populations, not people<\/h3><p>A reference range is the middle 95 per cent of a healthy population, which means one healthy person in twenty sits outside it on any given test. A single flagged value in an otherwise normal panel is usually noise.<\/p><h3 class=\"mt-4 mb-3\">Trends beat snapshots<\/h3><p>Two results six months apart tell us far more than one result today. If you have had tests elsewhere, bring them; we would rather compare than repeat.<\/p><h3 class=\"mt-4 mb-3\">When we do act quickly<\/h3><p>Some results are followed up the same day: a very low haemoglobin, a rising white cell count with a fever, or a clotting result that changes your medication. You will hear from us directly, not by letter.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A value printed in bold is not a diagnosis. Here is how our pathology team actually reads the numbers you see on your results letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":74,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,8,9],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pathology","tag-blood-tests","tag-diagnostics","tag-patient-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/doctors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}