LAB TESTING
Labs are only as good as the person reading them.
What I test · Why normal misses kids · Collection · A second opinion
You are holding results that came back normal, and a child who is clearly not okay. Both of those things can be true at once.
- PARENT'S QUICK TAKE
What is functional lab testing for children?
Functional lab testing pairs the conventional labs your pediatrician runs with deeper looks at the gut, nutrients, and how your child's body is actually using what it has. The tests are chosen for your child, not pulled from a fixed panel, and I read them alongside their whole story.
WHAT IS LAB TESTING
What is functional lab testing for children?
Functional lab testing combines ordinary bloodwork read more carefully with tests most pediatric offices do not run, such as stool testing, organic acids, food sensitivity panels and genomics. The goal is not more tests. It is the right tests, chosen for your child's actual story, collected in a way your child can tolerate, and then genuinely interpreted rather than glanced at.
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NORMAL
Why does normal bloodwork miss struggling children?
Because a reference range describes a population, not your child. A number can sit inside that range and be nowhere near where a growing brain needs it to be.
Ferritin is the clearest example I can give you. A standard blood count can look completely fine while iron stores are low enough to drive restless sleep, irritability and inattention. Nobody flagged anything because nothing crossed a line.
The second reason is that the right test was never ordered. If nobody asked about the gut, nobody tested the gut. If nobody asked what happened the year everything changed, nobody looked for an infection. Results come back unremarkable because the questions were never asked.
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WHAT I USE
Which tests does Happy Kid Functional Medicine actually use?
Traditional bloodwork, read deeper
Iron studies including ferritin, a metabolic panel with glucose, vitamin D, B12, zinc, thyroid, and inflammatory markers. These are ordinary tests, frequently covered by insurance. The value is in what gets asked of them.
Stool and microbiome testing
What is growing, what is missing, what is inflamed, and the signals the gut is sending out. More on gut testing →
Organic acids
A urine test that adds a metabolic layer, showing how cells are producing energy and what else may be going on, when the picture calls for it.
Food sensitivity testing
For when meals keep ending in symptoms hours or days later and nobody can find the pattern. Used to take fewer foods out, not more.
Immune and infection testing
Immune and inflammatory markers, infection past and present, and purpose built panels such as the Cunningham Panel when a PANS picture is on the table. The immune picture →
Genomic testing
The blueprint layer. Not whether your child has a nutrient, but whether their body can use it. More on genomics →
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COLLECTION
What if my child cannot tolerate a blood draw?
Then we do not start there, and I want to be emphatic about this because it is one of the things I care about most.
I will not torment a child to get a data point. I have watched children get traumatized by a testing experience, and that damage lasts longer than the information is worth. Many of the tests I choose are urine tests, and there are several ways to collect urine, including a collection bag worn overnight that you empty in the morning. Stool can be collected from a diaper. I give parents the tools to make all of it easier.
Can bloodwork be helpful? Absolutely, and it adds to the picture. Sometimes as we work together a child gets to a place where they can tolerate it, and then we do it. But you are the expert on your child. If you tell me your child would not do well with something, I believe you and we find another way.
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BRING THE FOLDER
Already have labs? Bring me the folder.
Some of the families who get the most out of working with me arrive holding results from four different specialists. Each one showed a glimpse of something. Each provider offered a different idea. Nobody ever assembled it.
Bring all of it. Sometimes it means we can skip a test entirely, which saves you money. Sometimes it means a number that was called normal two years ago reads very differently once I know the rest of the story. Either way, you already paid for that information and you should get the value out of it.
This is the one place on this site where I will say it plainly: a second look at results you already have is one of the cheapest useful things available to you.
TESTING, NOT GUESSING
Why the testing is the cost, and the reading of it is the value
The labs are the cost driver in this practice, not the visit. That is why cost varies so much from family to family, and why I choose testing for your child rather than running a panel on everyone.
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What you are actually paying me for is what happens after the results arrive. Which findings matter for this child. Which ones are noise. What order to address them in. What to deliberately leave alone for now.
I also ignore most of the supplement lists that functional lab reports auto generate. Those lists are not tailored to your child, and following them is how families end up with twenty bottles and no idea what is helping.
Bring me the results you are holding and the story nobody has connected them to.
HONEST ANSWER
Lab questions from parents holding results
More questions? The full FAQ covers cost, testing, school support and everything else parents ask me.
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Keep reading on the blog: stool, breath or organic acids: which test answers what, and iron, ferritin and attention: the lab most often missed.
RELATED CONCERNS
When the belly is the clue
Where I most often start, and where the most tends to change.
When you want to know why this child
The blueprint layer underneath everything else.
When your child changed drastically
Immune and infection testing when the timeline points that way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy Patton, DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC
Pediatric nurse practitioner and founder of Happy Kid Functional Medicine
I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner with more than a decade of clinical experience, and the founder of Happy Kid Functional Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska. I started my career in underserved communities and spent years in primary care watching the same children come back with the same unresolved symptoms, handed from specialist to specialist while nobody actually got to the bottom of it. I built this practice so those families would have somewhere else to go.
If this is an emergency, do not wait on me. If your child is in crisis right now, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or go to your nearest emergency department. For a sudden severe medical change, heavy bleeding, trouble breathing, or a seizure, call 911 or your child’s pediatrician.
I am the person you call about the plan we built together, about a reaction to something we started, and about symptoms getting worse on my watch.
Where I See Families
In person in Omaha, and by telehealth in six states.
In Person
Omaha, Nebraska
Telehealth
Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, Virginia
Not on that list? Reach out anyway. I would rather tell you honestly what I can and can't do than leave you guessing, and if I can't see you I'll point you toward someone who can.
LAST WORDS
The goal at Happy Kid Functional Medicine is to help children improve their overall daily wellbeing, so they can thrive to whatever capacity that means for them.
Not a different child. The same child, more comfortable in their own body.
With you in this, Amy
Amy Patton, DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC · Happy Kid Functional Medicine