How to Order Your Own Labwork
I promise you, the ordering process is as easy as ordering something from Amazon.
Note: you cannot order your own lab work if you live in New York, New Jersey, or Rhode Island as state law prohibits it. Find a doctor willing to order these tests. A functional medical doctor, naturopath, or chiropractor is your best bet.
First: make sure you have a LabCorp nearby. If not, see my suggestions below.
My favorite website to order from is Marek Diagnostics because they have low prices. However, if you are looking for the COVID antibody test, that can only be ordered through LabCorp On Demand.
(To read why you might want this, see my posts COVID Spike Protein Disease: What It Is and How to Recover and I'm Recruiting Volunteers for a COVID Spike Protein Substack Study Plus Group Fasting Challenges).
For other tests, LabCorp On Demand is outrageously expensive. For instance, it costs $17 to order a vitamin D test through Marek and $99 to order it from LabCorp. You will be given the same test at either price, you are just paying 6 times as much for the order.
How to order the COVID antibody test without a doctor’s order.
Go to LabCorp on Demand and make an account. You may already have an online LabCorp account if you’ve done lab work with them through your doctor before.
Click on the COVID antibody test, and add it to your cart.
Check out. If you have an HSA/FSA card, you can use that to pay.
LabCorp will email you a requisition form. I did not print this out because I figured I could just show them the form on my phone. However, they did not need the email but could see the requisition attached to my profile when I gave my name and birthdate. Your center may ask to see the requisition email.
Go to your nearest LabCorp. If you live in a big city, it might save you some time to make an online appointment. Locals, we can’t make online appointments. See below for why.
When LabCorp On Demand created the requisition form, a random doctor’s name was assigned to the form. It will be someone you’ve never heard of. When they say, “Is this for Dr. Goobledooble?” Just say yes.
The weird thing about this system is that LabCorp cannot tell from the form that you ordered the labwork yourself. My local lab can sometimes act a little puzzled since they know the names of all the local doctors. I had one technician act a little put out that she had to “enter a new doctor’s name in her system,” a process that appeared to take 10 seconds. But in general, I don’t get much flack.
How to order Labwork from Marek
So here’s the deal: next to the COVID antibody test, the most important blood test for COVID spike disease is the d-dimer, which measures blood clotting levels.
To make life extra complicated, LabCorp on Demand doesn’t offer d-dimer. So here’s the scoop. You can only order the antibody test through LabCorp on Demand and the d-dimer only through Marek. 🤦🏼♀️
(If someone knows of one site where one can order both COVID spike and d-dimer that also contracts with LabCorp, please leave a comment. I’m not sure why all the on demand websites don’t just offer all the tests!)
It’s really not that big of a deal, it just means a few extra minutes on the Internet ordering from two different sites.
Ordering through Marek is pretty much the same procedure as Lab Corp on demand, except that I always print the requisition form and bring it with me.
It’s a little bit hard to find the search bar on Marek’s website so I’ll just link to it here. (You have to scroll down a bit).
Type whatever test you need in the search, such as A1C. (BTW, an A1C costs $9. I had a diabetic client, and I wanted her to retest her A1C. She said she can’t because Medicare only pays for it every 6 months. So I said, just pay for an extra one yourself, it’s only $9. She said, “What do you mean $9? When it’s charged through Medicare, it costs $400. 🤯🤯)
Some tests I like to get yearly are fasting insulin, A1C, C reactive protein CRP, thyroid panel including reverse T3, hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone), CBC, vitamin D, RBC magnesium, lipids (the higher my LDL the better), glutathione, omega check, ceruloplasm (for copper status), homocysteine. If you get the essential lab panel, it bundles a few that I just mentioned.
My advice is that if you feel like a kid in a candy shop while ordering (I always do), you might want to break it into two orders so they don’t have to draw too much blood at once. The first time I did this, I think I had them drawing 15 vials.
A note to locals: how to find our hidden LabCorp
There is a LabCorp inside Moscow Medical that is not on Google Maps or even on LabCorp’s own website when you type in our zip code. However, it services orders outside of just Moscow Medical. To get to it, you have to enter as if you have an appointment with Moscow Medical. Once when I went, I just said to the front desk, “I’m going to LabCorp,” because I could see the technician sitting in there with no patients. The front desk waved me in.
Another time I tried to do the same thing, and even though I could see the technician there with no patients, the front desk made me fill out a little slip of paper with my name, and was told to sit in the waiting for all of 10 seconds until the technician went and got me. So I think the Moscow Medical front desk prefers that you check with them before walking back there.
What if I don’t have a LabCorp?
Check and see if you have a Quest Diagnostics instead. If so, you can use Jason Labs, Ulta Labs, or search for other on-demand labs that contract with Quest.
If you live in a place that has neither one, here are your options:
1) You can ask your primary care doc to order the tests for you and then they will just be drawn at the lab associated with his office. Some primaries are game to order any test you want; others flatly refuse and say, "I am the doctor, and I order the tests I want you to have." This happened to a family member of mine. Be prepared to give your primary a brief explanation of why you want each test.
Depending on the doc, they may want a list of symptoms you're having that you think could relate to the spike. They may not be up on spike protein disease, vax injuries, blood clotting, etc. Be prepared to fill them in. You could even print out studies to bring with you. My clients tell me that the average PCP is not up on COVID injuries.
2) If you can get in to see a functional medical doctor, naturopath, or chiropractor, they are often game to order anything and everything. They should🤞🏻 know all about spike disease without you having to fill them in but sadly some do not stay up on such things. 😒
3) Consider making a day trip to the nearest city with a LabCorp. As crazy as it sounds, before I knew about our secret LabCorp in town, I ordered labwork and drove an hour and a half to Spokane to get blood drawn. I would do it when I was going there anyway to shop or fly out. I have even been as nerdy as to get bloodwork done when visiting family in big cities, although I no longer need to. Get creative. I really think your health is important enough to get the labs any way you can.
Are you new around here? Welcome!
Allow me to show you around. I have some old posts you may be interested in.
I’ve organized my archives into two courses:
A Fasting Course that teaches you how to do intermittent fasting
And a Health, Nutrition, and Chronic Disease Course with modules
Here are a few additional posts from my archives that you might be interested in:
An Odd Cure for Incurable Cancer
How I Transformed My Health Part 1: My Intermittent Fasting Journey
If You're Looking for Health or Weight Loss Coaching, Here's the Low Down
Here’s a link to my health and weight loss coaching page
The Day My Mom Almost Died: My mom almost died of COVID
Great post with excellent resources! We need to be informed consumers of healthcare and take charge of our health. The days of assuming 'the doctor knows best' are OVER! If the last 4 years did not wake you up to that fact your are in serious denial. Substack has so many great resources, doctors who post excellent information. Some of my favorites are Dr. Peter Mc
culoough, Dr. William Makis, A Midwestern Doctor, Vigilant Fox, 2nd Smartest Guy in the world, and Scott Marsland.
There is also Jason health. There vitamin D test is 15 dollars.