Dr. Noor Halabi, ND
Your labs came back normal. You still feel terrible. Both things are true.
I treat perimenopause and metabolic health in Portland, and I publish what I actually find in practice, including the parts that contradict the advice you were given. If you have been dismissed, start here.
LICENSED NATUROPATHIC DOCTOR / 14 YEARS IN PRACTICE / 2,400+ PATIENTS / WRITER OF THE BOLD PRINT, A TWICE MONTHLY ESSAY
The position
A reference range is a description of a population. It was never meant to be a verdict on you.
Standard bloodwork is built to catch disease. It is very good at that. What it is not built to do is notice a forty-four year old woman whose thyroid, iron and cortisol are each technically acceptable and collectively making her life small.
So I test wider, I read the result against the person in front of me rather than the population behind them, and I say plainly when I think the conventional read is wrong. That is the whole practice. It is also why I write. Patients deserve to see the reasoning, not just receive the plan.
I am not anti medicine. I refer constantly, I order the same panels your GP does, and I will tell you when the answer is a prescription rather than a protocol. What I will not do is tell you nothing is wrong when something clearly is.
"Nothing is wrong with you" is a conclusion, not a test result. Ask which one you were actually given.
FROM THE BOLD PRINT, NO. 12
The Bold Print
Four essays that explain how I practice
No. 14 / Thyroid
The TSH number that gets you dismissed
Why a TSH of 3.8 is called normal, what the original reference population actually looked like, and the four additional markers I run before I will accept it.
No. 12 / Perimenopause
You are not too young for this
Perimenopause routinely starts in the late thirties and routinely gets diagnosed as anxiety. Here is the timeline nobody hands you, and what changes if you name it correctly.
No. 09 / Metabolic
Fasting glucose is the last thing to break
By the time fasting glucose moves, insulin has been compensating for years. The two cheap tests I run instead, and why most panels skip them.
No. 05 / Practice
What I will tell you that your last doctor would not
On saying "I do not know yet", on refusing supplements you do not need, and on why a good practitioner should sometimes talk you out of care.
Ways to work together
Two doors. Both start with real testing.
The Full Workup
12 WEEKS / $1,850
For the woman who has been round the loop already and wants the whole picture read properly, once.
Included. A 90 minute intake, a wide panel covering thyroid, iron, insulin and sex hormones, a written interpretation you keep, four follow up visits, and direct message access between them.
Best for. Fatigue, cycle changes, weight that will not move, and anyone who has been told they are fine more than twice.
The Second Read
SINGLE SESSION / $340
You already have results. You want someone to tell you honestly whether they were read well.
Included. A 60 minute session, my written second opinion on labs you already hold, and a short list of what I would test next and why.
Best for. Anyone holding a normal result that does not match how they feel, or deciding whether to pursue a fuller workup at all.
Ninety minutes, and you do the talking for the first thirty of them.
Every workup starts with a history long enough to be useful. I have never once found the answer in the labs alone.
One patient, in her words
I had four years of being told my thyroid was fine. Noor ran the panel my GP had never ordered, found the antibodies, and then did the part nobody had done, which was explain to me what it meant in language I could repeat to my husband. I am not fixed. I am informed, and I am sleeping again.
RUTH A. / 46 / PORTLAND / FULL WORKUP PATIENT SINCE 2024
Start here
Eleven questions your doctor should have asked you.
A free printed field guide. The exact questions I ask in a first appointment, what each one is looking for, and the tests that follow from each answer. Take it to any practitioner you like.