Salivary cortisol results

[Rocca]

Would any of you kind people be able to look at my 24 hour salivary cortisol test results for me?

WAKING 10.7 (6.00 - 21.00)

12.00 4.62 (1.5 - 7.60)

16.00 2.44 (0.00 - 5.49)

BEFORE BED <1.5 (0.00 0 1.99)

Done by Medichecks. Test comment said 'entirely normal'. I am still feeling rubbish upon waking and then late afternoon these horrible flu-like symptoms and a dreadful anxiety come on regardless of what I am doing.

My thyroid blood results are coming back normal and currently stabilised after a year of what has now been put down to temporary thyroiditis. I have TPO antibodies though.

TSH: 1.65

Free T4 17.8 (12-22)

Free T3 5.0 (3.1-6.8)

These figures match some pre-illness thyroid numbers which I found recently. I cannot think anymore that it is the thyroid numbers making me feel so awful but could the cortisol ones be causing it? I actually have many symptoms of dysautonomia, but also of low cortisol and also of Lyme Disease. (Cannot get a GP to test the latter though).

Someone on here kindly suggested I try a small dose of cortisol in the early mornings to see if it helps. Would that be recommended with these blood results? I am frightened of messing with my adrenals as I understand they are not very forgiving.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Rocca I really don't think just testing cortisol is much help, DHEA is needed too for a full picture. And putting the results in a graph is so much easier to see if you follow the normal curve eg Click on DOWNLOAD DOCUMENTS Labrix Sample report - ASP HOR05.pdf in this link to see what it should look like regeneruslabs.com/shop/prod...

We should be following that normal curve somewhere in the darker green area if everything is OK, if not we can see where things aren't right.

Cortisol should be highest in the morning and it lowers throughout the day, with the lowest result before bed. Your waking result is about 31% through it's range; 12 noon 51%; 4pm is 44% and bedtime is impossible to say because they haven't given an actual result so it could be as low as very bottom of the range or it could be as high as 70% (so a pretty useless result really!).

So your waking cortisol should be a lot higher, samples 2 and 3 might be OK, but impossible to say anything about your bedtime sample.

Medichecks are saying they're 'entirely normal' purely because they're in range.

If your TPO antibodies have ever been over range then you have Hashi's. Are you strictly gluten free and supplementing with selenium l-selenomethionine 200mcg daily to try and reduce the antibodies? Keeping TSH suppressed can also help.

As the aim of a treated hypo patient generally is for TSH to be 1 or below or wherever it needs to be for FT4 and FT3 to be in the upper part of their respective reference ranges when on Levo, a dose increase to lower your TSH and get your FT4 up to around 19.5 and FT3 to around 5.9 might help.

If your GP wont test for Lyme Disease and you believe you have symptoms of it, it would be an idea to get that done privately.

[Rocca in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thank you very much for your reply and the graph link. I spent £79 of money I am not earning on that test and Medichecks is a name that came up on this forum so I'm a bit disappointed if it's not the best one.

I will assume my adrenals need support and research accordingly.

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Rocca]

Rocca

I don't know enough about adrenal tests to say that your Medichecks is of no use at all. It may be enough for a doctor to interpret it, but I've had tests when I was under the care of Dr P, and more recently with another practioner, and they always included DHEA. Also, on Dr Myhill's website she has a page about interpreting adrenal stress profiles, and all examples are with both cortisol and DHEA drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Adrenal... so if you had results for both then you could be guided by her suggestions.

I always find a graph is so much easier to understand, you can instantly see whether you follow the normal curve and if so if you are high, low, or just about right. If you don't follow the normal curve, you will know when your adrenals are most stressed, or lacking in cortisol, and can address as appropriate. So much easier to interpret than a set of figures in my opinion.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and there may be members who can interpret the figures for you, but either they're not been around to see your post, or there are very few.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Rocca in reply to SeasideSusie]

Hi and thanks very much again for your reply. I see what you mean about a DHEA result being useful from the Dr Myhill page. I wish I had bought the other cortisol/DHEA test now. Maybe I will buy it. It's frightening having become so unwell again literally in the space of half an hour back in August and still having no answers. I think my adrenals were hammered by Carbimazole which I was given when it was thought I had Graves' disease. When my free T4 went from 41.9 to 5.00 in about three weeks flat the docs whipped me off it again and my diagnosis was changed to (unspecified) thyroiditis. I do wonder if that is what has landed me here feeling so awful as I understand this could have put huge strain on the adrenals. I hope they can recover from such an insult. I think I need to know more precisely what is going on. Thanks again.