Blood testing in Canada?

[koko26]

Teletest in Ontario is excellent. It might not help you @OP but it may help others

Hi anything like that in QC
thanks

 

[brutaltarik]

Hi anything like that in QC
thanks

not sure unfortunately, but I think that quebec is a bit more loose with private healthcare in general so so degree of Googling might get you there. I know back in COVID people intentionally transited out of montreal because you could pay for covid testing there for non-essential travel

 

[koko26]

not sure unfortunately, but I think that quebec is a bit more loose with private healthcare in general so so degree of Googling might get you there. I know back in COVID people intentionally transited out of montreal because you could pay for covid testing there for non-essential travel

any opinions on siphoxhealth is blood test from home ?

 

[brutaltarik]

any opinions on siphoxhealth is blood test from home ?

not familiar at all

 

[mikeh1998]

I think Alberta has Maple and Onmen if you want to go that route. You can also try getting bloodwork through a naturopath office, it’s the same thing though, it’s gonna come out of your pocket.

I get bloodwork done though my urologist so I don’t have personal experience with the private clinics. It is still better than crossing the border to get tests done in the USA though.

Maple has been crap for me. I tried asking 3 doctors in a row for blood tests and they all told me to just go to a walk in clinic. They typed so fast to tell me to fuck off it was unreal. This was before I ever thought about touching PEDs by the way, I was just having depression and wanted to make sure everything is OK on the hormonal end.

Only silver lining is that when I told customer support about it they gave me a full refund no questions asked like an hour later.

I use Teletest and I like it so far, costs some money but beats the Russian Roulette of getting a good walk in doctor. Protip if you do use them, go to Dynacare to get your blood tests done instead of LifeLabs if your T is going to show up >1500 because it's capped at LifeLabs.

 

[brutaltarik]

Maple has been crap for me. I tried asking 3 doctors in a row for blood tests and they all told me to just go to a walk in clinic. They typed so fast to tell me to fuck off it was unreal. This was before I ever thought about touching PEDs by the way, I was just having depression and wanted to make sure everything is OK on the hormonal end.

Only silver lining is that when I told customer support about it they gave me a full refund no questions asked like an hour later.

I use Teletest and I like it so far, costs some money but beats the Russian Roulette of getting a good walk in doctor. Protip if you do use them, go to Dynacare to get your blood tests done instead of LifeLabs if your T is going to show up >1500 because it's capped at LifeLabs.

fwiw some clinics have a policy that if you mention certain things they refer you out immediately. It might be as little as a keyword like "depression".. they see this as risk of suicidality and want to risk-off so they direct you to in person care or emerge.

Good tip on the requisitions!

 

[mikeh1998]

fwiw some clinics have a policy that if you mention certain things they refer you out immediately. It might be as little as a keyword like "depression".. they see this as risk of suicidality and want to risk-off so they direct you to in person care or emerge.

Good tip on the requisitions!

Interesting, I so far never had a bad experience at a walk-in or telehealth when mentioning depression.

When I mentioned that I talked to Maple about the blood test and they told me to fuck off, I didn't mention depression or anything related. I just wrote a short message like "Could you give a requisition for a hormonal blood panel?". I was expecting maybe a conversation would follow where they'd ask me why but they just ended the conversation there.

 

[oldgrey]

I have had great success multiple times with this :

Simply, go to a walk in clinic and tell the Dr you need blood work as your urologist / endocrinologist is on vacation and maternity leave, etc. Tell them you do not have a family dr. Tell them you had a medication change and you have x y z side effects, and Tell them a FEW specific labs (i.e. test, estrogen, not something random that makes no sense medically like hcg etc). Get lab req and go to a lab of your choice (I.e. dynacare in ontario) as most labs have online platforms (usually for a small membership like $13/yr) for you to view and receive your own results - otherwise contact clinic for results.

Success rate = 9/10. only turned away once, some dr you need to "push" a bit.

 

[Nishka]

it's super easy. Just hop onto teletest.ca and go to "steroid/PED harm reduction bloodwork". Get a referral, bring to a lifelabs or dynacare, you'll get a ping from them when results are available and the doc will tell you "your levels are bad, I'd recommend you stop."

they're only available in Ontario because it's co-owned by a physician and a web dev. So the physician is only licensed in Ontario and that's why he can't refer for other provinces. Apparently it's super complex hoops to get all these panels okay'd just for Ontario. They'd need to add a doctor for every province plus navigate getting the testing okayed.

i am in bc any idea how i can get bloodwork done
been trying to search the forum but no luck

 

[PrairieSteel]

Sorry to revive this thread.

I'm in Alberta and private bloodwork basically doesn't exist. Everything winds up in netcare.

I actually got reamed out by a previous family doctor over the costs of tests my TRT clinic ran. He didn't say much when I pointed out how many of the results were out of range amd affecting my quality of life. I changed doctors after this experience.

After researching this for what feels like a year or more I have finally settled on siphox health. I will be using their mail order service going forward. Some results, specifically hormones, can be off by 10 to 15% due to blood being from a finger prick (capillary blood) versus a blood draw. Whatever, good enough for me and better than nothing.

I want to keep all of these results off of my public records. I don't need to be judged or impact things like life insurance etc. Siphox bridges the gap and the prices are phenomenal compared to ichor.

I currently have a couple of siphox heart health kits (no hormones). Im going to perform a test the same day as I get my TRT clinic bloodwork followup. This will be an excellent point of reference for some of their tests accuracy.

Anyway yeah. Siphox. Worth the look

If anyone knows of any options for private loodwork in Alberta that doesn't end up in net care and won't cost me in the four figures per checking I would love to hear about it.