Cortisol - is this normal?

[MissFG]

Just got my cortisol blood test result of 436 (140-500) taken at 9am.

Is this ok as its upper end of the range. There’s no further action by GP. Just want to check as going to take a potassium supplement but just wanted to eliminate any adrenal issues. Thanks

[humanbean]

At 9am that is good. You need it to be high in range at that time.

Unfortunately a cortisol blood test will only tell you how good your cortisol was at the time the blood was taken. Since cortisol varies throughout the day and night you could have problems at other times but not know about it.

Although doctors would disagree with me, the best test of cortisol output is a saliva test done 4 times throughout the day (1 test with 4 samples - you don't have to order a test 4 times!).

The optimum results you are looking for are given on this link (See Example 1) :

rt3-adrenals.org/cortisol_t...

If you are interested and you live in the UK then the best companies for doing the saliva test are Genova Diagnostics UK and Regenerus.

[MissFG in reply to humanbean]

Thanks it’s something I was considering but as it’s upper range it maybe just be a series of unfortunate traumatic events I have to work thru in addition to hashimotos rather than adrenals issues - which was my worry

[MissFG]

That’s the only test I can get on the nhs everything else I’d have to pay privately for.