Blood Test
At-home Blood Test
Laboratory testing you can do at your own kitchen table, chosen for your history, with a written report you keep.
Going further with us later? What you pay here comes off a consultation and off the Restored Programme. Ask us for your code.
What you are choosing between
A kit you use yourself, £180. Quicker, because there is no appointment to keep.
A phlebotomist who comes to you, £230. Someone else takes the sample, at your home, at a time you chose.
For most women the kit does the job. Choose the visit if you would rather not do it yourself, if you have struggled with self-collection before, if you have ever fainted having blood taken, or if what we are measuring genuinely needs a vein. We will tell you if it does, and if the kit will do we will say so.
What is included
- Everything you need to take the sample, sent to you, or a phlebotomist who comes to you
- Laboratory analysis of the markers we agreed
- Your written report, yours to keep
- The laboratory takes 3 to 5 working days from receiving your sample, and your report follows once it has been read against your history
You have been told your results are normal. You still do not feel like yourself. Both of those things can be true at once, and the gap between them is usually where the answer is.
This is testing chosen for your history, by the clinician who will read it. Not a fixed panel sold to everybody, and not a printout you are left to decode alone.
Two ways to do it
A kit you use yourself, £180. It arrives at your door and you take the sample with a device that sits on your upper arm, not the needle you are probably picturing. You post it back. Nothing to keep in the diary.
A phlebotomist who comes to you, £230. They take the sample from a vein in the usual way, at your home, at a time you chose. Some markers can only be measured properly this way, and we will tell you honestly if yours are among them.
What you get
- Markers chosen for what you are actually describing, agreed with you before anything is posted
- Laboratory analysis
- A written report, included, and yours to keep
- Your results back within 3 to 5 working days of the laboratory receiving your sample
What we might look at
Depending on your history and your symptoms, this can cover hormone levels relevant to what you are describing, thyroid function, iron and ferritin, vitamin D and B12, and metabolic markers such as HbA1c, fasting glucose and fasting insulin.
Which markers are appropriate is decided with you. Testing everything is not thoroughness, it is noise, and it usually just creates worry.
Being straight with you
A blood test is one piece of what is going on. It sits alongside your history and how you actually feel, and it does not replace either.
It is not a diagnosis, and it does not replace your GP. If you feel unwell and it cannot wait, contact your GP or NHS 111.
Before you decide
Why this rather than a supermarket test
The difficulty is rarely getting a blood test. It is what happens to the result afterwards.
An off the shelf panel measures the same 30 things for everybody and hands you a page of arrows. Nobody chose those markers for you, and nobody is going to read them against your story.
Here, the markers are picked for what you are actually describing, and the person who picked them is the person who reads them.
How it works
- You pay, choose how your sample is taken, and give us 3 dates.
- We reply within 2 working days and confirm the date that is right for what we are measuring.
- You take the sample at home, timed to the right point in your cycle where that matters. We tell you exactly when.
- It goes by post to the laboratory.
- The laboratory takes 3 to 5 working days from receiving your sample, and your written report follows once it has been read against your history. It is included, and it is yours to keep.
What happens to your results
Your written report is included. No extra charge, and you keep it whatever you decide to do next.
If you would rather have somebody go through it with you, a 20 minute results review can be booked separately. That is the conversation where the numbers get read against your history rather than against a reference range on their own.
If anything in your results needs saying out loud, we will tell you when we send them, and we will tell you who can look at it properly and how you reach them. This is not a diagnosis and it does not replace your GP.
What we might measure
Depending on your history and your symptoms, this can cover hormone levels relevant to what you are describing, thyroid function, iron and ferritin, vitamin D and B12, and metabolic markers such as HbA1c, fasting glucose and fasting insulin.
Which markers are appropriate is decided with you, never picked off a standard list. Testing everything is not thoroughness, it is noise, and it usually just creates worry.
How to prepare
We tell you exactly how to prepare when we confirm your date, because it depends on which markers we are measuring and where you are in your cycle. Generic instructions here would be wrong for about half of you.
What we can tell you now is the shape of it. Some markers need you to have eaten nothing since the night before. Some need the sample taken first thing, because the level changes through the day. Some need a specific day of your cycle. We will put all of it in writing when we confirm your date, which is why it is worth telling us where you are in your cycle when you order.
Who we can look after
Our services are for adults aged 18 and over.
The interpretation we offer is built on female reproductive and hormonal physiology, so we are not the right service if you are taking gender-affirming hormone therapy or have had gender-affirming surgery. That is about the limits of what we can read accurately, not about who you are, and we will point you towards a clinician who specialises in that care.
Tell us before you pay if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, if you take a blood thinner or have a bleeding or clotting disorder, or if you have ever fainted having blood taken. None of those rules anything out on its own, but they change how we do this and sometimes whether we should.
Questions
What women ask before they order
The honest answers, including the ones that might talk you out of it.
I can get a blood test online for less than half this. Why is yours more?
You are paying for which markers get chosen and who reads them, not for the blood. An off the shelf panel measures the same fixed list for everybody and sends back a page of arrows; here the markers are agreed with you before anything is posted, and a written report is included. If you only want the raw numbers and you are happy to interpret them yourself, the cheap panel will do that, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Why can't I just ask my GP to do this?
Ask them first. If your GP will run what you need, take it, because it is free and we would genuinely rather you did. Most women come to us having already asked, and either been told everything is normal or found that the markers they wanted are not part of routine NHS testing.
Does it hurt? I am not good with needles.
The at-home kit uses a small device that sits on your upper arm. It punctures the skin to collect a few drops, so it is not needle free, but there is nothing going into the crook of your elbow and nothing you have to watch. The phlebotomist option is a normal blood draw from a vein, done by somebody who does it all day. Neither is nothing at all, and we are not going to promise you will not feel it.
I have fainted having blood taken before. Can I still do this?
Possibly, but tell us before you pay. If you have fainted before, the phlebotomist route is the safer choice, because somebody is with you. If you still want the kit, lie down to do it rather than sit, drink a large glass of water beforehand, and have somebody else in the house.
What if I mess it up?
If the kit itself arrives faulty, we replace it at no cost. If the sample cannot be used for another reason, the laboratory charges for a repeat, and we will tell you exactly what that costs before anything is sent again. Sitting down to do it and following the timing we give you avoids most of the problems.
How long will my results take?
The laboratory takes 3 to 5 working days from receiving your sample, and your written report follows once it has been read against your history. We will tell you when your sample has arrived, so you are not refreshing your inbox from the day you post it.
What if it all comes back normal? Have I wasted my money?
Normal is a real possibility and we cannot promise otherwise. It still rules things out, and it gives you a written baseline to measure against later, which is more useful than it sounds when something changes in a year. What nobody can tell you in advance is what your results will show.
Why not just test everything while you are at it?
Because testing everything is not thoroughness, it is noise. Measure enough markers for no reason and one will come back slightly outside the range, and you end up with a new worry instead of an answer. We agree the list with you first, based on what you are actually describing.
Does it matter when I do it, or can I just get it over with?
For some markers it matters a great deal, because the level changes through the day or with where you are in your cycle. That is why we ask for 3 dates and for the first day of your last period rather than just posting a kit out. We reply within 2 working days with the date that is right for what we are measuring, and tell you exactly how to prepare then.
Who actually reads my results, and what happens if something unexpected turns up?
A Women's Health Pharmacist chooses your markers and writes your report, which is included and yours to keep. If something in your results needs saying out loud, we say it when we send them, and we tell you who can look at it properly and how you reach them. This is not a diagnosis and it does not replace your GP.
Is this just a way to sell me supplements?
No, and your report is included whether you buy anything else or not. If something we measure points towards a supplement we will say so, and you are free to buy it wherever you like. There is nothing you have to buy from us for the test to have been useful, and where we earn anything from a product we recommend, we say so at the time.