I picked up my camera yesterday! It's beee-u-ti-ful! I haven't had a chance to play with it or even assemble it though because work is busy. 3 more days and I'm free! Yippee!
I have made time, however, to check my online results from recent saliva testing. Us IF girls and test results, huh? I ordered a ton of tests through Canary Club and am still waiting to do the blood spot ones (Vitamin D, FSH and LH, thyroid, thyroid antibodies, etc.) I do have my saliva results back and need your help interpreting them! I did the saliva on Day 21 for all these tests and I'm pretty sure I hadn't ovulated yet. Here are my results and reference ranges.
Estradiol- 8.9 pg/ml range: 1.3-3.3 Premenopausal (Luteal) or 12-100 for follicular (High)
Progesterone- 42 pg/ml range: 75-270 Premenopausal (Luteal) (Low)
Ratio: Pg/E2- 5 range: Optimal: 100-500 when E2 1.3-3.3 pg/ml (Low)
Testosterone- 39 pg/ml range: 16-47 (for greater than 30 years old)
DHEAS- 39.9 range: ng/ml 3.9-11.4 (for ages 31-45) (High)
Cortisol Morning- 13.4 ng/ml range: 3.7-9.5 (High)
Cortisol Noon- 3.8 ng/ml range: 1.2-3.0 (High)
Cortisol Evening- 0.9 ng/ml range: 0.6-1.9
Cortisol Night- 0.3 ng/ml range: 0.4-1.0 (Low)
My diurnal Cortisol was actually not as off as I thought it would be. Given all my fatigue and foggy thinking and my crashing in the afternoon, I thought it would be way off. It actually follows the style of the range graph on the chart and is only slight off. But I'm wondering if that's because I had a wee little bit of caffeine that day? I had 1/2 cup of green tea after my 1st collection (but that was still 4 hours before my 2nd collection) and 1/2 cup of coffee after my 2nd collection (but 4 1/2 hours before my 3rd collection).
I'm not surprised about the estrogen since I am estrogen-dominant due to PCOS. That is evident by all of the white baby stickers on my Napro chart!
The one I'm confused about is the DHEAS. I thought if the DHEAS was high then the testosterone or Cortisol would be too? I do have PCOS, so is that why it's high? But I don't have insulin-resistance and am not overweight. I'm a thin, non-insulin-resistant PCOSer according to my doctor. I am on 1,000 mg of Metformin each day due to the PCOS and miscarriages. Shouldn't this help lower the DHEAS?
Update- I just went back and looked at my files and saw I had this test done before in blood form and my DHEAS 3 years ago was 370 ug/dl with a range of 96-512. It would seem that 370 ug/dl would equal 37 ng/ml, which is close to what the test results were this time with saliva. My napro dr. wasn't concerned about it at that time, but it was also "in range." The frustration is that after 3 years of Napro, I still haven't achieved a healthy hormone balance!
What does this high DHEAS mean? Anyone have any insight? Google hasn't been too helpful and I don't meet with my dr. for another 2 weeks. There's no way I can wait that long for answers:-) Help me out girls, or at least give me more tests to ask for or questions to email my doctor!
Exciting about the camera and 3 more days until freedom!! YAY!!
ReplyDeleteCant help ya on the DHEAS...sorry. I hope you get answers!!
No clue what the DHEAS is but I sent a text to my practitioner in hopes that she knows.
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as the PCOS goes, I was just like you. Totally not typical patient with symptoms that didn't line up but I still had it for sure. Interesting!
Ok so it supposedly has to do with egg quality and adrenal fatique. Supposedly it mentions it in Dr. Hilgers new book but I lent it to a friend so I don't have it right now to look into. Hope this helps somewhat.
ReplyDeleteAwaiting- you are so sweet to text your practitioner! Thank you. I do have Dr. Hilgers new book, so I will look into it when I get home. Thank you. Egg quality and adrenal fatigue...hmmm...
ReplyDeleteDheas is a male hormone as far as I know. They check it in conjunction with testosterone and I think it is usually high in women with PCOS. I am curious as to why you are doing saliva testing? Are you being proactive or did your dr. order you to do those tests? I have dabbled in salvia testing as well and wonder if I shouldn't re-test myself.
ReplyDeleteBe Not Afraid- that's what I thought about the DHEAS, but I'm surprised then that my testosterone is in range??
ReplyDeleteAs far as the saliva- I was going to do the diurnal Cortisol. My doctor thought the results would be interesting, but he wasn't pushing for me to make sure it was done (I was the one pushing). He did give me lab requests for blood Cortisol and Dheas, but nothing saliva related. As I looked into the saliva testing, I saw it was $110 to do the 4x Cortisol one, or $250 to add 9 more tests. I went for the more tests:-)