Fourteen markers,and the reason for each one.
Published in full, because it is trivially checkable and because a clinic that will not tell you what it tests is telling you something. Which of these get ordered depends on your history — a clinician decides that rather than a fixed bundle.
The panel
What gets measured,and why each line is there.
Not one testosterone reading taken at four in the afternoon. This is the actual panel, and what each marker is there to rule in or rule out.
Before anything is prescribed
Total testosterone, morning, twice
Levels swing through the day and between days. Two early draws on separate days, because a single afternoon reading is not a diagnosis and should never start therapy.
Free testosterone and SHBG
Binding protein decides how much is actually available to you. A normal total can conceal a low free, which is one of the commonest ways this gets missed.
LH and FSH
Separates a testicular cause from a pituitary one. It changes the treatment, and occasionally it finds something that needs imaging rather than a prescription.
TSH
Thyroid disease reproduces the entire symptom list and is treated completely differently.
CBC and ferritin
Anaemia and low iron flatten energy on their own. Haematocrit also becomes the number we watch most closely if you do start therapy.
Metabolic panel, lipids, A1c
Insulin resistance suppresses testosterone. Sometimes the metabolic picture is the cause rather than a coincidence sitting next to it.
PSA, where age-appropriate
A baseline before treatment, because testosterone can raise it and a number with nothing to compare it against is not useful.
Prolactin, when indicated
A raised prolactin points at the pituitary and changes the whole plan.
For as long as you are treated
Haematocrit, on a schedule
Testosterone thickens the blood. This is the main safety marker on therapy and it is checked whether or not you feel fine.
Testosterone, timed to your dose
Measured where you actually land rather than where a protocol assumes you will, then the dose follows the result.
Symptoms, explicitly
Energy, drive, sleep, mood and training response. If the numbers moved and you did not, that is a reason to change the plan rather than to congratulate the chart.
PSA and prostate symptoms
Followed for as long as treatment continues, at an interval set by your age and your baseline.
Fertility, if it is on the table
Exogenous testosterone suppresses sperm production, and that is not always quickly reversible. Tell us early if this matters and the plan is built differently from the start.
The decision to continue
Adjust, hold or stop, made deliberately and written down. Nobody is left on a prescription by default because renewing it was easier than reviewing it.
Which of these get ordered depends on your history and your symptoms. A clinician decides that, rather than a fixed bundle, because ordering tests that cannot change the decision is a way of looking thorough rather than being thorough.
That is the whole panel
One afternoon reading is what you were given last time,and it is why you are still asking the question.
About three minutes. Nothing is prescribed at this step and nothing is charged.