Eleven questions your doctor should have asked you.

These are the exact questions I ask in a first appointment. For each one you get what it is actually looking for, and the test that follows from your answer. Eleven pages. Take it to any practitioner you like, including the one you already have.

You will also get The Bold Print, my twice monthly essay on what the reference range leaves out. One click unsubscribes you and I will not be offended.

Questions one to four, the history nobody takes. When it started, what changed that month, what your cycle was doing, and what your mother's forties looked like. Most of my useful findings begin here rather than in a lab.

Questions five to eight, the tests behind the tests. Which markers a standard panel leaves off, what each one rules in or out, and roughly what it costs if you have to pay for it yourself.

Questions nine to eleven, what to do with a normal. How to ask for the actual number rather than the word normal, how to ask what range is being used, and how to ask what would change the answer.

A one page summary you can hand over. Printable, plain, and written so a busy clinician can scan it in thirty seconds without feeling second guessed.