Your symptoms and history can provide lots of good clues into the state of your hormonal balance. Because of the complexity of our bodies, there are several hormones that can be responsible for similar health issues and symptoms when they go out of balance. To know the answers, testing becomes necessary. Hormonal testing is also very important to individualize hormonal replacement therapy. Testing allows us to give you precisely the amounts of bioidentical hormones you need and in exact ratios that are unique for each person. It also helps monitor the hormonal levels in your body once we begin the treatment and make carefully calibrated adjustments.

There are 3 ways to measure your hormonal balance and levels: urine, blood and saliva.

Urine Hormone Testing

This is the best approach most of the time. It is noninvasive and at the same time provides an accurate picture of your hormonal balance that correlates well with symptoms. What’s more, urinary hormonal levels can be tested as frequently as necessary to see how hormone levels fluctuate in your body over the course of hours and days. Having that knowledge is important for understanding what exactly causes your symptoms and how hormones are metabolized by your body. Testing your urine for hormones provides a dynamic portrait of your endocrine system and the best clues how to balance your hormones.

Blood Hormone Testing

Some hormones don’t end up in your urine because their molecules are too big to be filtered by the kidneys. Therefore those hormones stay in your bloodstream, and the only way to measure them is to take your blood sample. The most common hormones that require bloodwork are thyroid hormone and insulin. Luckily reproductive hormones such as estrogen and testosterone make it into the urine without a problem, so their testing doesn’t require a needle stick.

Saliva Hormone Testing

Although it may seem like the simplest approach, testing saliva for hormones does not provide an accurate picture that is required for precise Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy for most hormones except cortisol.