Please try to understand my salivary cortisol test. As an additional info: i have been taking DHEA 3 times 25 mg each day due to IVF to increase egg quality but I was off taking it 72 hours prior taking salivary test as recommended on STTM site. I was also officially diagnosed with Hashimoto a week ago.
Should i take some Adrenal cortex to improve my health in the morning?
Right after waking around 7:00 am: 8317 pg/ml REF: 1850 - 14570
2 hours after waking around 9:00 am: 6448 pg/ml REF: 1300 - 10290
5 hours after waking around 12:00 am: 4132 pg/ml REF: 760 - 5690
8 hours after waking around 3.00 pm: 1312 pg/ml REF: 650 - 4380
12 hours after waking around 7:00 pm: 601 pg/ml REF: 330 - 3330
Thank you very much in advance. Esther
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Ester78
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I don't recognise those ranges and don't know who did the test. Did it come with a graphic where your results are plotted to see how you follow the normal curve, like in this example:
Yes, there is a graphic but I couldnt post a picture of it. Its pretty much plotted right under the middle range in the mornings and right at the bottom in the evening. Im not sure if it makes sense for you.
Obviously I don't know what the notes say, are they helpful?
At least they are all in the green range so that's something. As you know from Humanbean's reply, your waking level needs to be at the top of the range which would then mean you follow the curve reasonably well until the 3pm one.
With those timings I would have thought the 3pm one is the equivalent of the 4pm one that Regenerus do and class as "evening", then your 7pm one would be classed as the "bedtime" one. But that's just my interpretation.
No, those notes are not really helpful under my graphic. They are just general notes on cortisol effect on metabolism. Thank you for your kindness again.
The optimal levels given above are for tests that include 4 saliva samples, so to adapt the optimal levels to your results I'll have to do a lot of guessing, which dramatically reduces the accuracy of anything I say.
I'm going to suggest that optimal for five results is :
1) Top of range i.e. 14570
2) 75% of range i.e. 8592
3) 50% of range i.e. 3225
4) 25% of range i.e. 1582
5) Bottom of range i.e. 330
...
Sample 1 : Optimal = 14570 ; Your result = 8317 ; You produce 57% of optimal
Sample 2 : Optimal = 8592 ; Your result = 6448 ; You produce 75% of optimal
Sample 3 : Optimal = 3225 ; Your result = 4132 ; You produce 128% of optimal
Sample 4 : Optimal = 1582 ; Your result = 1312 ; You produce 83% of optimal
Sample 5 : Optimal = 330 ; Your result = 601 ; You produce 182% of optimal
Totals : Optimal = 28299 ; Your result = 20,810 ; You produce 74% of optimal
...
The pattern of having too low a level of cortisol earlier in the day and too much later in the day is very common when the adrenals are suffering. I would guess that you start every day with no energy, fuzzy headed, unmotivated, fatigued. You "come alive" to some extent as the day goes on, but then get your second wind in the evening and find it difficult to sleep at night.
The first thing to be aware of is that you should concentrate your efforts on increasing your cortisol levels early in the day. If you succeed your higher cortisol levels later in the day may fix themselves.
The first thing you can try is an adrenal cocktail first thing in the morning. I wrote a reply explaining what the adrenal cocktail is and how to use it in this thread :
If the adrenal cocktail doesn't work for you then you should probably try taking an adrenal glandular. I'm not familiar with these personally. Start by searching for references to Adrenavive on the forum.
Read the replies and check out the links that have been posted within the post. McPammy wrote an interesting reply - she was prescribed T3 and her extremely low cortisol improved dramatically enough to become "normal".
You are so wonderful as always. Thank you very much for your kind response.
Yes, its more like a guessing game when its a five point salivary test.
But this was the only lab in Hungary doing a salivary test and they only work with Ganzimmun Germany.
Its very unfortunate i can not post the graphic of my test result because it shows that my evening result is right at the bottom. And actually its never over range. Its more like lower middle till noon and at the bottom from 15:00h to 19:00 h. But there wasnt even an option taking a test at night time only 12 hours after waking up which was at 19:00h for me.. So its more like the evening time when profile should be around 50% through the range as I understood and mine was 9% thru the range as you kindly calculated for me.
As you kindly wrote I wake up with no energy, fatigued, exhausted and most days I feel the same way all day. I have no trouble sleeping. actually I could fall a sleep anywhere. Im not even able to stay awake after 22:00h. I have no exercise tolerance, my muscles are sore all the time even though i stopped training because i had no energy to do so and I could never recover. But I will try your suggestions for sure.
Sorry to hear you are suffering so - you seem to be taking a very high dose of DHEA was this prescribed at this dose? It could be the reason you are so exhausted - too much pressure on the adrenal gland - however if you have been prescribed this then you need to speak with your Dr before reducing the dose.
Yes, it was prescribed by my doctor at IVF clinic to increase egg quality before doing any treatment.
Im not sure what to do because everything is delayed, postponed..etc due to coronavirus situation. I can not even get a hold of the clinic. And of course doctors havent even heard of adrenal fatigue here in Hungary. So everytime I mention this condition to my endocrinologist he looks at me like I was stupid and saying Im not even close to developing Addisons disease.
Hi there Esther - such a shame you have been left like this - it is an awful time - I am surprised actually they are using DHEA which doesn't actually produce Progesterone which is what I think is needed - but then not many medical people know about Pregnenalone which supplies all the sex hormones - DHEA - Testosterone - oestrogen and progesterone and cortisol. I don't think you have any alternative but to stick with it or reduce slightly the dose but then I am not your Doctor. Wishing you feeling better soon.
I wonder - you say you came off the DHEA 72 hours before you took the test- how did you feel - better or worse?
I think my doctor put me on DHEA because my estrogen was quite low. Actually I felt only a slightly better while i was off DHEA but maybe the time was too short to tell the difference.
Yes, maybe i should reduce the dose a little bit to see if it helps. To be honest Im so used to i have to self-diagnose myself and self-treat as well. Unfortunately i dont have much confidence in doctors anymore. They only specialize in one field and they never look at the entire body as a complete system.
They most certainly do not! They are very narrow thinking I am finding. I have 2 conditions going on, hypothyroid with a gene mutation affecting treatment and atrial fibrillation. The cardiologist has no clue to how thyroid hormones affect the heart. The GP has no clue about thyroid either and no idea what the gene mutation means. Neither of them considers adrenal issues. And then, because of my age, I have HRT in the mix. It's a slow moving nightmare.
Hi there - they work in silos - compartmentalised medicine - nothing crosses over - I remember when I got ill with very complex symptoms load - I was sent to 5 different consultants in one week - Gastro - Dermo - Rheumy - Endo - Chest - and even though I had had X rays done in some of the other specialities and bloods they insisted I have them done again for their own clinic. This was 20 years ago - I don't think they do it now - you can walk from field to field with test results and reports and they accept them.
But as for their training - well leaves a lot to be desired - I often wonder how shocked they would be if they say learned about the thyroid in depth and saw that probably most of their patients with heart issues - renal - skin - you name it were sitting in front of them due to low thyroid or adrenal hormone. Some would be out of a job but some would be damn annoyed they didn't know to help say a heart or renal patient.
I had renal issues which improved 100% after being on thyroid hormone and my consultant was amazed and I gave him research papers that told him why - he used these to fight for his patients to be tested for this deficiency.
Well done to you for persevering and getting results.
I've been doing the same for a long time, but I need the GP on side for some of it because I just can't pay for everything. So I have to progress slowly. Bit by bit. And I have to undo the damage they do to me along the way. I have been put onto beta blockers for my arrhythmia, but they have badly affected my feet, making it difficult for me to stand or walk for long at all. They refuse to accept it's the tablets even though it's on the side effects list. I've just got them to agree to trying a different med that might not hurt my feet, might not harm my thyroid update and possible remove some of the fatigue. It should not be like this. But it is.
I'll give you a tip that I have used throughout my illness and it was horrendous what I went through - dislocations - jaw - pelvis - spasticity muscles going into spasms unable to walk without gasping for breath and falling upstairs as my muscles were too weak to lift up my legs enough - sores all over my body so I screamed in the shower with the pain - I could go on an on - and all of these were not only thyroid related but Vitamin C - magnesium and the sores were dangerously low zinc which was unable to be metabolised because the thyroid was running so low. I was virtually dying - my body was breaking down bit by bit using up all my nutrients to keep me going. I was unable to take drugs for my Lupus as I didn't know at the time the thyroid was involved too - so I had to use my knowledge on nutritional medicine and would google - 'what deficiency causes my toe to hurt' or whatever the symptom was and then I would add that component back in if safe to do so and it worked for me and kept me ticking over until I could get help with the thyroid - but.....................I wasn't on any drugs which makes it a clean sheet to do this. Once you are on prescribed medication it makes it more difficult to do. I believe the body breaks down via nutritional elements not actually the disease itself - dis-ease - is exactly what it is - the disease comes after the dis-ease. If you get my drift.
Im sorry to hear that you have to deal with so many health related conditions.
Its quite sad you are pretty much on your own with all these diseases. But Im also very glad that we have this community with great experts who we can always ask if we are unsure about something. I hope you will get better soon. Would you consider using bio-idenctical HRT?
Bioidentical HRT is not regulated in the UK and has no record of it's efficacy. I spent about 3 years trying to use the stuff through an expensive London clinic. I blame it for the degradation of my health because it didn't help me when I needed it to.
I've since switched to a much better private clinic manned with NHS specialist doctors and my HRT is body identical, proven and actually works. So no, I'd not touch bioidentical HRT again and I hope you don't either. Body identical is available on the NHS for the price of a prescription.
Hi Esther - I have had to self medicate for 20 years you get to become a bit of an expert and can listen to your body - mine seems to tell me what it going on.
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They are just general notes on cortisol effect on metabolism. Thank you for your kindness again.
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