Hormone Testing Brisbane.

Hormonal imbalances can lead to a heap of different symptoms in the body, including irregular periods, low libido, weight gain, anxiety, irritability, insulin resistance and more. The first step to getting a diagnosis is to take your full health history and map our your symptoms. This helps our naturopaths determine which tests will give us the right information.

Sometimes blood testing will suffice and other times we will test your urinary hormone metabolites which gives us much more nuanced information about your cycle.

Which hormones can yo test?

We can test most hormones in the female body including;

• Oestrogen – a conventional blood test only tests for Oestradiol (E2). Urinary hormone tests can test oestrone (E1), oestradiol (E2) and oestriol (E3). In addition to this our testing can look at 2, 4 and 16 hydroxy oestrogens – which are breakdown products of oestrogen. This is important because 2-hydroxyestrone (2-OHE1) is more protective in the body whereas 4-hydroxyestrone (4-OHE1) and 16α-hydroxyestrone (16α-OHE1) can potentially be harmful – being proliferative in nature they are associated with increased cancer risk.
  • For complex issues we always want to have a look at all levels of oestrogen production and metabolism. High oestrogen can contribute to irregular periods, endometriosis, mood issues and PMS. Low oestrogen can cause vaginal dryness and other issues.
• Progesterone – blood testing 7 days post ovulation (along with oestrogen) gives us a good indication of progesterone levels. Urinary tests look at both forms of progesterone and also breakdown products which is useful.
  • If your cycle is irregular – care needs to be taken on when to test progesterone and oestrogen. Our naturopaths will ensure you do the right testing at the right time.
• Testosterone – Basic blood tests only look at free testosterone but there are a lot of androgens that we can also test for. To get a full picture we want to look at androstenedione, DHT, free androgens and also sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) – a protein that binds hormones. Getting the full androgen picture is especially important in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) – where sometimes blood testosterone can be normal but these other hormones give a fuller picture.
• Luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) – these two hormones control ovulation in women and also are important markers when assessing if women are in perimenopause or menopause. They are tested via blood.
  • High LH can be seeing in PCOS so it is important to do testing at the right time.
• Cortisol – your major stress hormone – cortisol can become too high when stress management isn’t happening in your life and too low when stress has been too high for too long.
• DHEA – produced by the adrenals – DHEA is a precursor to hormonal production so when it is low it can interfere with hormone levels.
• Thyroid hormones – thyroid hormonal imbalance can disrupt other hormones in women – more about that here.
• Insulin – insulin resistance can interfere with metabolism so testing this hormone can give valuable insights into your blood sugar regulation.
• Anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) – sometimes used a marker of ovarian reserve in fertility, AMH can indicate issues like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) or how close you could be to menopause.

To get the most out of testing your hormones you need to know which time of the menstrual cycle (if you have one) to test, what timing is best. Doing a women’s health hormone test at the wrong time can lead to useless information.