I suppose I prefer to have the data. I have potentially four overlapping health conditions which are hard to decipher and sometimes improvements on changing behaviours or actions are difficult to pin down to what the cause was and whether the action has improved anything or if it would have got better because of something else. E.g. I'm taking a nasal spray for another reason at the moment. My health conditions are perimenopause, mental health, long covid and potentially nutritional.
My frustration in not getting this (cheap for the NHS) data point is it would be a cheaper test than actually having the consultation with the GP but then will tell me and him whether both are low and also what kind of supplementation I need. I already (sometimes, not honestly consistently) take iron and B12 and have a high iron and B12 diet (I'm probably one of the few people who actually eat offal fairly regularly for example) but both can be poorly absorbed from diet. My mother has to have B12 injections for them to work. If that's not all offered then I'll go for the most likely to be absorbed and possibly retest myself to see if it's worked.
You also have to understand the wider medical history with my GP. Where I'd already given him a run down of my diet and exercise and he then referred me, without informing me, to a county wide weight loss programme, which is full anyway and they sent me advice including doing 150 minutes of exercise a week and the "eatwell guide" which is just so utterly basic and already what I'm doing it's painful in how laughable it is and how little I've been listened to.
Add onto this when I originally presented with perimenopause symptoms at the age of 45 they did a single blood test for oestrogen, didn't even ask which part of my cycle I was in, ignored my symptoms and said I wasn't perimenopausal. I had to raise a complaint quoting NICE guidelines for them to admit they were wrong and their GPs had very little training on menopause and they'd change that.
Since then I've pushed for a referral to someone who does know about menopause. To get the referral took >1 year and I've been on the waiting list for 9 months.
In the meantime, I'm now on testosterone gel as well and mirena but I've now had three occasions where they've messed around with my HRT prescriptions. Sometimes refusing them, sometimes issuing less than previously. The last one was issuing two pumps of oestrogel when I have 4 gel pumps per day (I normally get 5 containers) so that will last me very little time. I asked why and they said they now needed a blood pressure test before they could issue a prescription for me for oestrogel even though they'd already issued 2 packs. I did that. a week later. Still not issued. Contact them. Claim they'd issued it 2 weeks earlier. According to my pharmacy they only issued it on my final chase so lied to me.
So as you can see, there is a lot of history where I really feel let down by my GP. There is zero trust I have in them but due to provision where I live I have no option to move (I've raised this with local and national government. It's not just an issue I have but they have appalling CQC scores and very bad on line reviews.)
All I was asking was, prior to this appointment or even instead of it, isn't it worth checking my B12 and iron? Wouldn't that make more sense than potentially wasting the GP time?
As with everything else I'm doing around my health and wellbeing, I'm pretty much ticking everything you should do. I don't drink. I exercise about 4-6 hours a week including weights and cardio. I eat very healthily with minimal if any added sugar and the same for simple carbs. I eat more than 30 plants a week. I mostly cook from scratch. I eat a reasonable amount of lean protein including liver, red meat, white meat and oily fish as well as vegetarian sources like lentils. I eat high fibre and fermented foods (I make my own sauerkraut and eat kefir etc) I even have cut back on nitrites etc.
So while you're right I may have pinned some thoughts about my health on this, it's not only about weight that strange HbA1c result is bugging me and makes little sense alongside other blood results but also might make sense with the amount I exercise.
And I might be wrong. But I also have low trust in my GP in their knowledge on perimenopause and nutrition and I think if you read the above you can understand why I hold that view.