One Day Tests – My Blood Results & 10% Off

My Blood Results From One Day Tests

As you guys know from my recent blog posts and Instagram stories, briefly mentioning the health issues that I’ve been going through, I’m finally putting together a big post going through everything, including my blood test results, and where I’m going from here in terms of treatment and plans going forward.

Since I have Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, I’m never able to have a proper blood test done intravenously. My veins are too delicate, they collapse as soon as they’re touched, and I pass out. This has led to me having extreme phobia of needles in my veins because of the same experience every time. It’s literally impossible. The only way to draw blood is via a groin artery, which is often dangerous (it can only be done by someone with training), and extremely painful. The way I choose to check my blood now is at home via finger prick testing.

I’m so grateful that finger prick blood testing exists! There are many companies online that offer it, but for this particular round of testing, I went with One Day Tests. One Day Tests is a leading UK provider of these home finger prick blood testing kits, and private walk-in clinics across the UK. The company was founded in 2022, and the best thing about them is that they’re unique to the market as they offer a 24-48 hour commitment for test results, no referrals are needed, and you get complete ownership of your results through a live dashboard full of your personal health information.

The other good thing about this company is that One Day Tests has its own CQC laboratory, meaning it’s regulated and is verified by External Quality Assurance. They don’t outsource, so they are in control of the entire process from test choice to blood results. They can also create any blood test required so it will suit all your needs. This was something that made me choose them. They offer entire full blood counts as well, which most places do not, and I hadn’t had mine checked in a long time. Also, with over 160 different tests available, there’s literally everything you need in one place!

I personally chose 3 different tests. I chose the Ultimate Performance Test, which has 57 biomarkers to test! I also went with the Bone Profile Test, and the Progresterone Test. The Ultimate Performance test is one of those that gives you a full MOT so you can gain knowledge on your health status, giving you peace of mind and some reassurance, identifying potential issues early on, as you can take it whenever you want to. You don’t need a doctor’s appointment and you don’t have to have blood tests ordered by a doctor. So, lets talk about the One Day Tests kits, and how you take the blood sample.

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Inside the kit, you receive your blood sample tube(s), some lancets, secure pouches to put the blood tubes in, plasters, antibacterial wipes, instructions, and a bag to ship it all back. The instructions are super easy, and it tells you that you need to use the lancets to prick your finger tip, then gently squeeze out the drops of blood and drop them directly into the blood sample tube. You must fill the tubes to the top line, so they have enough blood to work with, and don’t wipe your blood drops off with the tube top, as this can damage the integrity of the blood molecules, you must let it drop.

Don’t panic and think that the entire tube must be filled, it doesn’t! As you can see, inside the big tube is a little tube, which is what you will be filling. I’d say on average, it probably takes me around 15-20 drops of blood to fill up a tube, depending on what test I am having done. I find this process so much easier than having a venous blood draw, as I explained before. I can do my tests in the comfort of my own home.

Once you have filled up the tubes and tilted it upside down a few times with the lid on (depending on which one you’re doing – the instructions tell you), you place them inside the bio hazard pouches. You seal those up with the security seal, write the time and date on the outside of the packet (there’s a section for this), enclose them into the box, then put the box into the prepaid shipping bag. You must ship this off as soon as you’ve done it, as it needs to get to the lab the next day. I use the NHS priority post box which has a last collection of 5pm (do not use a non priority box), but they also recommend you take it to the post office before noon to ensure it’s picked up.

It literally is one of the easiest processes for me when it comes to checking my blood and my health. At home testing has literally been a life saver for me. Truly. Given my condition and the fact that I can’t get blood taken properly.

As I mentioned above, you start receiving your blood test results the next day (as long as they received the sample) and you receive all of them within 24-48 hours. The full blood count usually comes in first as that can be tested very quickly, and that is what I got first. So lets take a look at some of my results below.

The One Day Tests dashboard gives you options at the top to select the biomarkers you want to check, but you can also view all of them by scrolling down. They also email you a PDF with your results in as soon as results come through, so you may get multiple emails throughout the day. They then appear in the dashboard of your account. So lets take a look at what the PDF results look like first.

PDF Results

Full Blood Count

Blood Sugar

This is how they appear in an attached PDF in your email. You have to open this with a pin code for security reasons, but everything appears really easy to read with your results and what the ranges should be to the right. As you can see, luckily for me, my full blood count was just fine (I’ve always had the lower end range of white blood cells) and my blood sugar is perfectly fine too, so this is good! Pretty much everything else (that’s not listed below) came back normal, but I’m sharing the abnormal results and what they look like in the dashboard below, so you can see how easy it is to understand. Your little blue dot is your result, and the red dotted lines are the ranges.

Dashboard Results

Hormones

As you can see, my testosterone is higher than it should be. This is keeping in line with the fact that I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome. I am working to try and bring this level down.

Unfortunately after testing my Progesterone levels on day 22 of my cycle, my levels were extremely low. The higher they are at this point in your cycle, it means you ovulated and are fertile. For me, I don’t think this is the case as my levels were below 25.

These were taken at the follicle stage of my cycle, where FSH is meant to be a lot higher. Unfortunately mine is at the very low end. This, again, goes in line with PCOS and fertility.

My LH levels were also super low and almost non existent as you can see. This is another hormone, controlled by the pituitary gland, that stimulates ovulation.

Now I’m including my Prolactin here, even though it’s normal, to show you how it’s declining. For as long as I can remember (all the way back to 2016), I have had abnormally high Prolactin levels. They originally did a pituitary gland MRI on me because of this, suspecting a tumour, but this came back ok. My levels at the moment seem to be dropping a lot. I have included a screen shot from a previous test supplier to show this. They went back into the normal range earlier this year, and then each time I test, they keep dropping down more and more. This is concerning me as I have never had normal ranges before and I need to keep an eye on it as I have other issues going on with my pituitary gland.

Cholesterol

Moving onto my cholesterol, as you can see, it’s pretty high! I heard that this can be common in Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), so I’m not too worried at the moment as I am trying to get my hormones under control, which should improve my cholesterol levels. My good cholesterol is high as well, not just the bad, so at least that’s a good thing and balances out my ratio more.

Liver & Kidneys

I’m not sure about my kidneys here as the eGFR is near the low end of normal, and the Creatinine is the high end of normal, so I hope my kidneys are functioning ok. The same with the Albumin in the liver. I will have to keep an eye on these in future tests.

Iron

Now with my iron, my body has enough iron stores, but it doesn’t seem to do a good job using them. My Transferrin is below normal range, and the Ferritin is borderline. Both of these have always been low and I’m not anemic, I don’t think, my body just doesn’t do a good job at utilising the iron I have. But again, this is something I have to keep an eye on as it can be a per-cursor to anemia.

Inflammation

My inflammation in the body is normal, so this is good. This means I don’t have any internal inflammation, which is useful for what I’m about to talk about next.

White Blood Cells Count

And again here, my white blood cells are the low end of normal, very near the bottom, which means I am not fighting an infection or virus of any kind. Again, this is important information for the next talking point. So now that you can see these results are really easy to understand, here’s more of what I’m struggling with.

When I did my pituitary gland MRI a few weeks ago, I did this without contrast dye because of my veins issue, and this is the same way I did it in 2016. It came back as ok, except I was missing my T1 Bright Spot. This is a bright spot on the gland that can be seen in the MRI. My previous 2016 result did not say this was missing, so I have been trying (without luck at the moment) to get NHS doctors to re look at that old scan and see if it was there or not, because if it was there and now it’s missing, there’s an issue.

A missing T1 Bright Spot can be from inflammation (I didn’t have any as the blood test showed), a virus (I didn’t have one), Diabetes Insipidus (I have no symptoms of this) or… a pituitary gland tumour. Since I did not have contrast dye in the MRI, the report came back that they could not tell if there were any small tumours present as they cannot see them without dye. This is what worries me, because my hormones that are controlled by the pituitary gland regularly go up and down for no reason, fluctuating a lot in both directions, and my prolactin was always high, now it’s just getting a lot lower.

I often feel like I don’t just have PCOS, I feel like I have more symptoms and issues than just this. A lot of things going on with me do not make any sense, and are not completely in line with PCOS alone. So I am concerned about a possible tumour on my pituitary. Once I receive information on whether or not I did have a T1 Bright Spot in 2016 and now I don’t, I will need further investigations. I’m really scared about this though since I’m not sure how they can investigate with my needle issues.

So this is where I’m at right now. I have been put back on the Co-Cyprindiol birth control pill to try and lower my testosterone and get my hormones back within range. But this time I’m taking it 21 days, with a 7 day break, instead of continuously as continuously didn’t work out for me. Then I will test everything again in a couple of months, with One Day Tests, and see if there’s any changes. I’m also considering having one of their GP appointments that they offer, to go through my results as well. I’m hopeful that I get more answers soon with what’s going on with me, but in the mean time, I definitely recommend using One Day Tests for any blood tests you want to have done in the UK.

Get 10% off your tests with my code: LORNA10

And for those of you interested, the Ultimate Performance Test that I chose tests all of these:

FULL BLOOD COUNT
– White Blood Cell Count (WBC)
– Red Blood Cell Count (RBC)
– Haemoglobin (HGB)
– Hematocrit (HCT)
– Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV)
– Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin (MCH)
– Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin Concentration (MCHC)
– Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW)
– Platelets* (PLT)
– Mean Platelet Volume* (MPV)
– Lymphocytes* (LYM)
– Monocytes* (MON)
– Neutrophils* (NEU)
– Eosinophils* (EOS)
– Basophils* (BAS)

THYROID FUNCTION
– Unbound thyroxine (Free T4)
– Unbound triiodothyronine (Free T3)
– Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH)

MICRONUTRIENTS
– Total Vitamin B12
– Folate serum
– Ferritin
– Iron
– Transferrin

DIABETES
– HbA1c

HORMONES
– Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG)
– Free Androgen Index (FAI)
– Oestradiol/estrogen
– Luteinizing Hormone (LH)
– Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH)
– Testosterone
– Free Testosterone
– Testosterone : Free Testosterone Ratio
– Free Testosterone : Cortisol Ratio
– Prolactin
– Cortisol
– DHEA Sulphate

KIDNEY FUNCTION
– Creatinine
– eGFR (CKD-EPI 2009 formula)
– Urea
– Uric acid

LIVER FUNCTION
– Globulin calculation
– Albumin
– Total protein
– Bilirubin
– Alanine AminoTransferase (ALT)
– Gamma-GlutamylTransferase (GGT)
– Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP)

CHOLESTEROL
– LDL cholesterol
– Non-HDL cholesterol
– HDL cholesterol
– Total cholesterol
– Total cholesterol/HDL ratio
– Triglycerides

INFLAMMATION
– C-Reactive protein
– Creatine Kinase (CK)

ELECTROLYTES
– Magnesium

Thank you to One Day Tests for gifting me these blood tests. I always choose who I work with wisely, and reached out to them about this collaboration myself, as I needed to have my blood checked. I usually do this alone, not on my blog, but since they offered so many amazing tests, I wanted to share it all with you. This review is 100% honest and chosen by me to showcase how accurate One Day Tests are.