To be a bit worried about needing repeat blood tests?

[pyjamas89]

I've not been feeling brilliant lately and had some blood tests done in the middle of last week. This morning I received a later saying following the results of these bloods the GP has requested repeat testing. The logical part of me says if there was a real problem they would call and not send a letter by snail mail and that it's probably something silly like there was not enough in the sample or something, but at the same time I do feel a bit anxious about it. Is anyone please able to fill me in on all the straight forward reasons a repeat test may be needed and why there's no need to worry?!

Sample lost or damaged are most likely reasons.

In the time frame you desc

Aargh, bloody keyboard!

In the time scale you describe, I’d say it’s a dead cert that it’s sample lost or test failed. Put it out of your mind.

But if you really cannot shake the niggle, ring your GP on Monday (or ask the nurse/phlebotomist when new bloods taken.

But for context, I had an unexpected highly adverse result from a blood test taken for a completely different purpose. The GP rang me the following day to say haematology needed to see me urgently and could I go in tomorrow morning please.

Just repeating the tests really does strike me as ‘I’m not remotely worried about this right now’ from the HCPs

I went to A&E earlier this week and they had to repeat a blood test after a few hours because the blood from the original sample clotted.

If it'd been taken at a community clinic, I'd probably have been getting a letter in the post like you.

The results came back absolutely fine. It's super irritating that that didn't tell you the reason in the letter, though!

Lots of reasons (depending on what it's for) I used to work in an NHS blood lab doing dna testing.
Sample lost,
Sample clotted
Error at the lab-human or machine
Failed in some way, again test dependent

I once had a similar request and when I queried it they sheepishly admitted that my original sample had been spilt in the lab. I too was very anxious but try not to worry.

What were the tests for? I could be that something was a little bit out of range and they want to test it again to see if it still is. That has happened to me. It could be that the original sample was lost or damaged too though..

Sample could have clotted, haemolysed, sample under filled, lost sample, lab error.

I've worked in a biomedical lab for 7 years, plenty of reasons for repeat testing that may not be to do with your actual results.

Could be because of unlabelled sample, sample dropped in the lab or the sample clotting. However sometimes when patients come back for a second tests it is because something is slightly out of range and the Dr has ordered a re test to see if it’s gone back into range or or if any treatment is actually needed. My practice always word the letter that the patient is to book for a NON urgent repeat test. If it was urgent the dr would have called you rather than tasking the admin team to send a letter out so please try not to worry. Do you know what tests were ordered?

As above or it could just be that something is borderline. It’s definitely nothing to worry about given they wrote to you. They would call you in to see the GP ifthere was anything bad.

Ds had a blood test at 10 weeks. We then got a request for a repeat with the term of "not enough blood for a full test". My GP sniffed and said "that's code for 'We dropped it on the floor by accident.'!"

Probably something similar.

Thanks for all your replies, you have made me feel much better about it.

I'm not sure of the specifics but whatever they check to screen for polycystic ovaries (I assume hormones?) and 'cancer markers' were the main two things that were mentioned, I'm guessing amongst other things.