Health history for adopted DH?

[Sammich_Cat]

Apr 2, 2015 13:06:51 GMT -5 NariaDreaming said:

Mar 30, 2015 22:20:56 GMT -5 wanderingheart said:

And his adoptive parents don't know of any family history from the adoption? I just can't see how this has never come up before in his life.

Every time you go to a new doctor, there's a health history packet of information to fill out. How did his parents fill that out for him as a kid?

I wrote ADOPTED across my health history questionnaires growing up. I had no health history information, and frankly now that I know my biological mother (reunited 3 years ago, she withheld a TON of information from the agency regarding family health history to try and not scare my adoptive parents off.

Mar 30, 2015 23:02:47 GMT -5 Sammich_Cat said:

Mr. Sammich also works in genetics and had at one point written a paper about these types of companies- can't believe I forgot them! Apparently there used to be quite a few, but then many got bought or the FDA came down on them. The two he remembered that are still alive are Counsyl (which the website says won't be more than $1000 w/o insurance) and Pathway genomics.

I had Counsyl done at the recommendation of my RE. It will give you answers for the major genetically-linked diseases, but it's not perfect.

My insurance did cover it- it was coded as medical origin workup- adoptee of unknown history.


Sammich_Cat I'm not asking for medical advice, just professional opinion on a semi-related. My bio mom lost her father in his late 50's to alzheimers, and her sister in her early 40's to alzheimers. Do you think it's worth the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to request eFAD testing?

YGPM

[flippinchica]

Lurking. Doctors always ask family health history even when it isn't really relevant because it is required for billing purposes for a new patient exam. If the thing that fills that spot is "unknown due to closed adoption" that fulfills the requirement. Obviously if there is something relevant it is taken into account but doctors can certainly care for patients without this info.

Also MH was adopted in a closed adoption in the late 60s and knows zip about his family medical history. This is very common. H does worry about not knowing his family history for his own sake (cardiac risk, etc).
I did have counsyl testing which tests for recessive disorder in my initial RE workup. Since I didn't test positive for anything they didn't test MH.