Originally Posted by
Mark Rippetoe
I hope you guys have figured out that the reference range numbers are almost meaningless. Your serum level is not like the gas tank gauge. One guy may be fine at 375 and another guy symptomatic at 880. If you are symptomatic and you add test, and you benefit from it, then your test was low, no matter the reference range. If the doctor tells you your number is "high enough" that he won't treat it even in the presence of symptoms, then like prescribing statins to women with total cholesterol at 235, he's just being a Doctor. That's his Training. The system is physiology -- it's very complicated and there are variables at play we don't even know about, and attempts to make it into engineering do not work.