Thyroid Blood Calculators

[Decant]

Hi guys,

I'm a thyroid patient but also a computer programmer by profession. I have created a website with blood-marker calculators, as you can see below. You can find it by browsing to: thyroid.chingkerrs.online/.

I've written it with us thyroid patients in mind with a few bells-and-whistles (more to come): -

* Formats the results so they can be copied into posts on this site. Just press the "Copy" button!

* Has more blood markers. It is very easy for me to add other blood markers.

* Works well on smaller screens like phones

I wanted to do a little something to repay the excellent advice that members here have given me time-and-time again over the years.

I know that    FancyPants54 's husband has kindly written a different one (thyroid.dopiaza.org/ ), but as I am a fellow patient perhaps I have more "skin in the game" and can enhance mine more quickly?

I would love to hear your suggestions for improvements and fixes (large and small). At the moment I'm able to make improvements rapidly. Some ideas are: -

1. Easily set the ranges from different labs, e.g. Medichecks, Blue Horizons. I would need someone to tell me the ranges for the different labs.

2. Switch from SI to US ranges.

3. Convert test results and ranges from SI to/from US.

I have other bigger ideas but I'd like to hear any feedback.

Thank you!

[Decant]

And how it looks on a small (phone) screen.

Narrow image of thyroid calculator

[Decant in reply to Decant]

The copied results look like this. Happy to tweak this format

TSH 0.32 pmol/L (0.27-4.20) 1.3%

Free T3 4.46 pmol/L (3.1-6.8) 36.8%

Free T4 22.6 pmol/L (12.0-22.0) 106.0%

T4:T3 Ratio 5.067

Thyroglobulin Antbodies 15 IU/mL (< 115)

Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies 9 IU/mL (< 34)

Folate - Serum 5.72 ug/L (> 3.89)

Vitamin B12 - active 70.8 nmol/L (37.5-150) 29.6%

Vitamin D 143 nmol/L (50.0-200.0) 62.0%

[GlowCoach Administrator in reply to Decant]

Missing a ferritin result btw.

[Decant in reply to GlowCoach]

I've added it - see image in main post. Any others? Thank you

[GlowCoach Administrator in reply to Decant]

There are other types of antibodies but it might get cluttered and too confusing to add more. The ones frequently tested you have there already. 😀

[Decant in reply to GlowCoach]

Yeah, I think there could be too many, hopefully you all can help find the sweet-spot. I might have a way of hiding different sections of bloods; group into say Thyroid, Vitamins, Hormones, Automimmunity, etc. That way you could just show what you want?

[GlowCoach Administrator in reply to Decant]

Could be a nice feature. Also if there was a way to compare a previous set of results to current results? Would it be possible to download it so it can be individualised? Might be complicated but IDK whats possible. 😆

[Decant in reply to GlowCoach]

That's also something I'd like to do. Quite a bit of work! At home I have a spreadsheet with my results going back in time. A column per test date. Then it would need a graph, and so it goes on 😃. Leave it with me!

[GlowCoach Administrator in reply to Decant]

Yes, I've made a google spreadsheet but actually not sure I've laid it out very well. Thanks for your efforts!

[Decant in reply to GlowCoach]

The issue I have is that ranges change by lab, and also over the years (occasionally). So the ranges need to be per test date, but then it might get too messy and confusing to use!

[Decant in reply to GlowCoach]

Just what you see has been the best part of 40 hours work (I track my work time with another app I've written 😃)

[GlowCoach Administrator]

Fantastic. That looks very useful indeed!

[Imaaan]

A great addition, thanks for the work.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

I would prefer to see a T4:T3 ratio as that is what is mentioned here more than T3:T4, for example we frequently see mentioned that good conversion takes place when the ratio of T4:T3 is 4:1 or less.

[Decant in reply to SeasideSusie]

Is already there, 4th row of the table. Doors or need expressing differently, as a ratio or a number? I just divide ft3 and ft4 to give a number.

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Decant]

No, you've given the T3:T4 ratio and many of us would prefer to see the T4:T3 ratio which is more often used here.

To clarify:

FT4: 22.6 (12-22)

FT3: 4.46 (3.1-6.8)

T4:T3 ratio is when you divide the FT4 by the FT3 = 5.067 : 1 and we usually talk about this ratio and say good conversion takes place when ratio is less than 4:1 (as originally mentioned by Diogenes).

You have given the T3:T4 ratio by dividing the FT3 by FT4 which gives 0.20 and very few of us know what would be poor conversion using this ratio, I certainly don't.

If you want to keep the T3:T4 ratio can you add the T4:T3 ratio as well?

[Decant in reply to SeasideSusie]

Oops, that's my bad, I will flip it round to T4:T3. Thank you, easy fix.

[Decant in reply to Decant]

Fixed, now T4:T3

[Brightness14 in reply to Decant]

I think it's great thank you.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Looks excellent

Folate….sometimes (helpfully) has a top of range

[Decant in reply to SlowDragon]

The ranges are based on medchecks public info - do you know their upper range and where I might find all of their full ranges?

I'd like to allow users to select the lab ranges, currently you can change each range as you see fit.

Thanks

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Decant]

Medichecks ranges vary depending on which testing company they use.

FOLATE

Eurofins County Pathology range 3.89-19.45 usually shown as >3.89

I think The Doctor's Laboratory range is 2.9-14.5 usually shown as >2.89

New lab that Medichecks uses is INUVI and their range is 8.83-60.8

ACTIVE B12

Medichecks range again differs with the lab they use

Eurofins County Pathology - 37.5-188

The Doctor's Laboratory - 25.1-165

INUVI - 25.1-165

FERRITIN (if you decide to include that)

Eurofins County Pathology - 13-150ug/L

The Doctor's Laboratory - 13-150ug/L

INUVI - 30-650ug/L

[Decant in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks. That could get complex/overwhelming quite quickly, especially as ranges seem to change occasionally. I wonder if users should be able to select by laboratory, but then they wouldn't know without looking at the report carefully.

Maybe the drop-down selector should list (e.g.): -

* Medichecks (Lab: Eurofins County Pathology)

* Medichecks (Lab: The Doctors Laboratory)

* Medichecks (Lab: INVUI)

* Other choices for the other testing companies and labs like Blue Horizons

As you can see that could get complicated for patients to use!

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Decant]

Yes, too many choices and will complicate things but, assuming yours works the same as the dopiaza one, then to keep it simple any one of the calculators can be used for any of the tests, eg I have used all of the dopiaza ones to work out any of my other tests such as the TSH one to work out percentage through range of ferritin.

[Decant in reply to SeasideSusie]

Yes indeed it does; the calculation is the same for all blood-markers.

percentage = ((result - min) / (max - min)) * 100

In due course I'd like to add a converter, to allow conversion between SI units we use and the US units. An earlier version had this in the table but it was too cluttered and not useful in the everyday case.

I'm starting to think that I should allow the user to hide the min and max, and/or re-order the columns to show name, acronym, min, max, test-result, units, percentage in that order.

[1tuppence]

Thank you. For someone like me who struggles with Maths...childhood phobia, never lost :-)...this would be most helpful for me. I am a visual person...and here you've created a visual image of mathematical results. Brilliant. Thank you very very much.

[Decant in reply to 1tuppence]

You are very welcome, thank you for your kind words!

Please let me know if there anything else you'd like to see.

[1tuppence in reply to Decant]

Perhaps you can explain what happened when I just typed in my latest blood test results?

I saw the TSH percentage, and the T3, but there was nothing beside the T4...why is that?

I'm also used to the Forum way of TSH, T4, T3 in that order and the conversion T4 to T3...which I can never manage to compute

Other than this I found your method very easy to use...and I am by no means good at "techie" stuff.

[1tuppence in reply to Decant]

I've just had another go

It might be useful, for un-techie folk like me, to advise clicking on the blood test result box once filled in?

This time I did that, and my results %-wise came up.

The copy result box is great, but it might be helpful to change the placing of the T4 and T3 as you have done with the test result boxes?

Thank you so much for your work.....it does simplify things for a visual- minded person like me

[helvella]

Much appreciated.

Comments very much trying to be helpful - not critical!

I think the ability to copy (also present in FancyPants54 's husband's one) is good. Somehow members still seem to want to post as images!

If you wanted to space out the results more, you could use em space or en space characters. Unlike normal spaces, they don't get reduced to a single character when displayed!

The up/down clickers on the result and range values don't need to allow negatives! They could stop at zero.

For those who get results from the same lab repeatedly, it might be helpful if the ranges could be saved in a cookie?

White text on orange wouldn't be my choice!

[Decant in reply to helvella]

All comments welcome; I'd like it to be useful and accessible to all of us here!

I'm happy to work on the format of the results; I've based it upon what I've seen here; trying to standardise it so everyones looks the same - save some effort from you admins

I can format the data using &emsp; into columns on the webpage, but I don't think it's what we want, when it's pasted into HealthUnlocked the font is not monospaced so the various columns wouldn't line up anyway.

I've added a hard zero limit on the up/down spinner. Uploaded.

I do want to do something about saving ranges. I shall save them to local storage in the browser; this entire page is run client-side, there's no server to set a cookie. Saving client-side means there's no privacy risk (and is easy!) but does mean the same ranges aren't available between browsers or between a laptop and phone, for example. Horses-for-courses.

Where are you suggesting white text on orange? The input already does that when it is outside the range. Orange is for warning, better than red as being outside the range doesn't definitely imply "run to the hospital"!

Thanks for your feedback

[helvella in reply to Decant]

Thanks.

The extra space wasn't to align the results - as you say, they can't. But some extra spaces can make it read more easily.

Like this:

FT4 16.2 pmol/L (10 - 22) 51.67%

I did that in my simple range calculator spreadsheet:

helvella - Range Calculator Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet for calculating a test result as a percentage through the reference interval (range).

This is an Excel spreadsheet but is likely to work in other spreadsheet software.

From Dropbox:

dropbox.com/s/2hux0bhfw4avh...

From Google Drive:

drive.google.com/file/d/131...

[Decant in reply to helvella]

Makes sense. I've finally torn myself away from my computer for a walk, so that will have to be later! Thanks

[helvella in reply to Decant]

Sorry - I missed what you said about white on orange!

Yes, the fact it changes when out of range is great. But I find it relatively difficult to read that combination on a small screen, or without putting glasses on, etc!

[Jazz80]

Thank you, so helpful to see the essential results gathered together together in this way, a picture is worth a thousand words, excellent!

[Decant in reply to Jazz80]

You're very welcome! The "Copy" button also means you can copy the results into a HealthUnlocked post in the format that the admins like.

Any suggestions welcome 👍

[helvella]

QR Code for this calculator - click on the (+) and point your smart phone or tablet camera at the QR code. On many devices that will make it easy to get to the calculator.

QR Code for Decant's calculator

[helvella]

I have added your calculator to my Vade Mecum document. Will be in it next release.

[humanbean]

Something I would like to see is a Reset button, that would return all the fields to what one would see on first opening the page. I would be very happy if you could do this!

[asiatic]

Would it be possible to add space for TRAb results for those of us with Graves ?