My friend has been seeing a Harley St Endo who is reluctantly testing her adrenals. (There's a bit of a back story which Is explained following my last question the other day for those who want to read it!).
On my advice, she has asked for a 24hr saliva test (because it tests at 4 individual times of the day which gives a better reading as cortisol levels are naturally different at different times of the day). He won't do this and said that he's going to so 'something even better and more accurate' which is the 24hr urine test for adrenals. Now I've read, and this makes absolute sense to me, that this test isn't accurate because it combines all your urine in one sample, so if for example it's higher than it should be in the morning say, but lower at lunchtime, this test won't pick this up as it takes the average as it's all in one sample.
When I did the 24hr saliva samples, my cortisol and DHEA were below the norm in the morning, higher than norm at lunch and much higher than the norm at midnight. If it had been a urine sample I'd done, we wouldn't have known the true readings and I understand different levels at different times mean different things. (I can't remember what off the top of my head).
Just wondered what others think about the two tests and whether the 24hr urine one is accurate enough?
Thanks! X