Short answer first, then the reasoning. Quarterly for the first year is convention rather than evidence, and it is defensible for a simple reason: it is roughly the interval over which HbA1c becomes informative again, since it reflects about three months of glycaemia. After the first year, and once doses are stable, annual is reasonable unless something specific is being followed.

sarah.morrison said:

Quarterly for the first year is convention rather than evidence, and it is defensible for a simple reason: it is roughly the interval over which HbA1c…

Agreed, and reference ranges are laboratory-specific. Comparing your number to somebody else's range, or to a screenshot from another country, is how people convince themselves something is wrong.

pete_RVA said:

I got a full panel before starting and a repeat at three months, and the second one is more useful than the first purely because I now have something…

This matches mine closely enough to be worth saying so. A defensible baseline is short: HbA1c and fasting glucose, a lipid panel with ApoB if you can get it, ALT and AST, creatinine with eGFR, TSH, ferritin and B12, and a full blood count. That set catches the things that change, the things that explain symptoms, and the things that alter the prescribing decision. Almost everything else on the long circulating lists is either invariant, uninterpretable without a specific question, or an incidental finding waiting to cause an unnecessary workup.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads.

Shot day Friday report relevant to baseline bloodwork:

Week 30. Currently on 5mg. Down 36 lbs from starting weight of 248 lbs.

This week's observations: Slight injection site redness, resolved in 24h.

Labs due next week — looking forward to seeing the metabolic panel. I'll post results in the Lab Results section when they come in.