Dr.CardioMD said:

PSA: get baseline labs BEFORE starting baseline bloodwork therapy.

No disagreement with Dr.CardioMD. One condition attached. Yes, and the corollary is less popular: if the reasoning holds, it also holds where it produces an answer we do not like.

Dr.SurgeonPGH said:

Agreed, and reference ranges are laboratory-specific.

Thank you for spelling out the reasoning rather than just the conclusion. Sending this to two other people who asked me the same thing last week.

Dr.CardioMD said:

PSA: get baseline labs BEFORE starting baseline bloodwork therapy.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. The objection nobody has made: this only works if the measurement is doing what we assume it is doing, and that assumption has not been tested here.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

Moderator note: leaving this open. It is being argued well and the disagreement is the useful part. Report rather than reply if it drifts again.