julia.endo said:

Whatever the answer turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, and invite the…

This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. Pushing back on the consensus forming here. Consistency is not the same as correctness, and a board that agrees with itself quickly is usually agreeing with the first person who sounded certain.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

One concrete data point for the thread. Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here. A large fraction of the apparent disagreement in these threads is two people using different units and both being right.

sarah.morrison said:

Pushing back on the consensus forming here.

Coming at sarah.morrison’s question from a different direction. It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false. If nothing would look different, it is not a claim about the world and no amount of discussion will settle it.

One thing that is still open after amy_econ_NJ’s answer:

What did you change at the same time, and can you separate the two now?

Closing the loop on my own question.

For the archive: it took about six weeks rather than the two I expected, and the difference between those two numbers was the whole of my problem.