Help with Cortisol Results

[Rachel1958]

Hi all, i'd love some help with my results.

I got my cortisol results and they are well whacky.

Very high on waking and 12 midday (not surprising as i always have lots of get up and go even if i m totally exhausted! Weird i know).

Then normal for 4pm and high normal for bedtime.

Bedtime surprising as i have a lot of trouble getting to sleep and always feel totally wired no matter how tired/exhausted i am; but i think you recommend low normal is best for bedtime.

Since starting T3, I sleep deeply once i AM finally asleep, though.

Hope this all makes sense!

[Hidden]

It would be worth asking your GP to check an early morning blood cortisol to see if it is still high. Being on HRT or the contraceptive pill will also give a false "high". The fact that your reading is low at bedtime is good. If you have Cushing's disease/syndrome then cortisol is likely to be high at night. A normal early morning cortisol can be anything between 350-550nmol/Ls between 8-9am. Cortisol varies throughout the day but is at it's highest first thing in the morning.

[Rachel1958 in reply to Hidden]

Thanks so much, Pauline.

I'm not on HRT or the pill.

So these don't look too bad?

I actually feel fine. My only problen now is getting to sleep at night, in fact!

[Hidden in reply to Rachel1958]

It would still be worth getting your cortisol checked, but make sure you get a copy of your results as most GP's don't have a lot of understanding about cortisol levels.

[Rachel1958 in reply to Hidden]

Thanks.

You mean with a blood test? I'd have to go to my GP early?

[Hidden in reply to Rachel1958]

Yes a blood test between 8-9am.

[Rachel1958 in reply to Hidden]

Will do my best. i don't tend to wake til 9 so could be tricky! x

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Rachel

The Medichecks adrenal test is pretty useless for a few reasons:

1) It doesn't include DHEA which is important as well as cortisol.

2) Two of the ranges have zero as the bottom end of the range, if anyone really did have a result of zero then I expect they would be very ill.

3) For the bedtime sample they don't give a level below 1.5, they just show it as <1.5 which is neither use nor ornament. Bedtime sample should be very bottom of range so just saying <1.5 tells us nothing because it could be zero and it could be 1.4 and there is a massive difference to interpreting the result then.

According to web.archive.org/web/2018083... optimal results for cortisol are

• Morning at the top of the range - yours is slightly over range and may be classed as OK.

• Noon approximately 75% of the range - yours is a long way over range

• Evening close to 50% of the range - 50% through that range is 2.75 so yours is fine

• Nighttime at the bottom of the range - yours is too high

A much better test which includes DHEA as well as cortisol and proper ranges for all samples, and a very similar price, is Regenerus or Genova Diagnostics.

[Rachel1958 in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks.

It explains why i can't get to sleep anyway!

[Rachel1958 in reply to Rachel1958]

I did the Genova one a few months ago but they messed it up so i tried someone different.