[Serenity]

Hi everyone, well I am still new to NBE and have been reading for quite a while on here about various components that produce success.. I am looking for opinions about hormone tests I had done... I don't have as many results as I would have liked. I relocated recently and went to a new gynecologist who I had HOPED would agree to do hormone testing. She was condescending and rude and tried to tell me hormone levels had nothing to do with symptoms of estrogen dominance I have been experiencing. All she wanted to do was put me on birth control but having read alot about that as well I wasn't gonna have that. Ultimately after debating with her she agreed to test SOME of my hormone levels.. but estrogen was not one of them. I got my blood drawn day 3 of my period.
My results were surprising because I was expecting low progesterone, but I had 25 .... not remembering the units but I believe the lower limit was 15 for my time in the cycle (I think this was still towards the lowish range of healthy levels)..My thought is that probably I am in fact estrogen dominant but have no way of knowing as that test was refused to me Which is extremely frustrating as all lab work WOULD be free of cost to me w/ my insurance. Testosterone and DHEA were pretty much in the middle of the normal distribution.. (somewhat surprising also as I have had back and chest acne popping up more severe than I've ever had in my life in the past few months) TSH and Prolactin were below normal limits... TSH was about .28 again not remembering the units.. but .34 was the lower limit. My Prolactin was below normal limits as well. Drs have yet to get back with me about the results, but from what I'm understanding I could have a slight thyroid issue....
For those who have similar low TSH is prolactin usually low as a result?
I am quite confused having researched about low TSH as it seems that it can be interpreted to mean either over or underactive thyroid??? Anyone have any ideas about the implications of this for NBE?
Has anyone had success in improving thyroid function naturally?

And for those of you who have had better success than I did with my doctor, what did you tell your doctor that made them okay the lab work? I spelled out ALL my various symptoms and she flat out told me it had nothing to do with estrogen or progesterone levels.

any insight would be awesome!!
ps. if helpful I can dig out the actual results and list them here

[sue3625]

Hi everyone, well I am still new to NBE and have been reading for quite a while on here about various components that produce success.. I am looking for opinions about hormone tests I had done... I don't have as many results as I would have liked. I relocated recently and went to a new gynecologist who I had HOPED would agree to do hormone testing. She was condescending and rude and tried to tell me hormone levels had nothing to do with symptoms of estrogen dominance I have been experiencing. All she wanted to do was put me on birth control but having read alot about that as well I wasn't gonna have that. Ultimately after debating with her she agreed to test SOME of my hormone levels.. but estrogen was not one of them. I got my blood drawn day 3 of my period.
My results were surprising because I was expecting low progesterone, but I had 25 .... not remembering the units but I believe the lower limit was 15 for my time in the cycle (I think this was still towards the lowish range of healthy levels)..My thought is that probably I am in fact estrogen dominant but have no way of knowing as that test was refused to me Which is extremely frustrating as all lab work WOULD be free of cost to me w/ my insurance. Testosterone and DHEA were pretty much in the middle of the normal distribution.. (somewhat surprising also as I have had back and chest acne popping up more severe than I've ever had in my life in the past few months) TSH and Prolactin were below normal limits... TSH was about .28 again not remembering the units.. but .34 was the lower limit. My Prolactin was below normal limits as well. Drs have yet to get back with me about the results, but from what I'm understanding I could have a slight thyroid issue....
For those who have similar low TSH is prolactin usually low as a result?
I am quite confused having researched about low TSH as it seems that it can be interpreted to mean either over or underactive thyroid??? Anyone have any ideas about the implications of this for NBE?
Has anyone had success in improving thyroid function naturally?

And for those of you who have had better success than I did with my doctor, what did you tell your doctor that made them okay the lab work? I spelled out ALL my various symptoms and she flat out told me it had nothing to do with estrogen or progesterone levels.

any insight would be awesome!!
ps. if helpful I can dig out the actual results and list them here

Don't tell them what test that you want.
Tell them that you have symptom that will force them to give you the test that you want-lol

remember that they can't handle the truth.

[Lotus]

Hi everyone, well I am still new to NBE and have been reading for quite a while on here about various components that produce success.. I am looking for opinions about hormone tests I had done... I don't have as many results as I would have liked. I relocated recently and went to a new gynecologist who I had HOPED would agree to do hormone testing. She was condescending and rude and tried to tell me hormone levels had nothing to do with symptoms of estrogen dominance I have been experiencing. All she wanted to do was put me on birth control but having read alot about that as well I wasn't gonna have that. Ultimately after debating with her she agreed to test SOME of my hormone levels.. but estrogen was not one of them. I got my blood drawn day 3 of my period.
My results were surprising because I was expecting low progesterone, but I had 25 .... not remembering the units but I believe the lower limit was 15 for my time in the cycle (I think this was still towards the lowish range of healthy levels)..My thought is that probably I am in fact estrogen dominant but have no way of knowing as that test was refused to me Which is extremely frustrating as all lab work WOULD be free of cost to me w/ my insurance. Testosterone and DHEA were pretty much in the middle of the normal distribution.. (somewhat surprising also as I have had back and chest acne popping up more severe than I've ever had in my life in the past few months) TSH and Prolactin were below normal limits... TSH was about .28 again not remembering the units.. but .34 was the lower limit. My Prolactin was below normal limits as well. Drs have yet to get back with me about the results, but from what I'm understanding I could have a slight thyroid issue....
For those who have similar low TSH is prolactin usually low as a result?
I am quite confused having researched about low TSH as it seems that it can be interpreted to mean either over or underactive thyroid??? Anyone have any ideas about the implications of this for NBE?
Has anyone had success in improving thyroid function naturally?

And for those of you who have had better success than I did with my doctor, what did you tell your doctor that made them okay the lab work? I spelled out ALL my various symptoms and she flat out told me it had nothing to do with estrogen or progesterone levels.

any insight would be awesome!!
ps. if helpful I can dig out the actual results and list them here

Hi serenity,

Sorry you had a bad experience with the your doctor, either she was having a bad day or she is just a butthole all the time.

Surprising estradiol wasn't tested. Ok, I'm not a doctor here but come on, it's all hormonal right?, I mean JHC, hello! What causes estrogen dominance?, exactly!!!, your hormones are out of balance and causing the dominance. You can self diagnose ED by your symptoms, of course the only true way of knowing is to be re-tested again.

I think it's time we had are own test result comparison chart for Breast Nexus, it might take a few days for what I have in mind, but it really frustrates me hearing these kinds of exchanges with HCP's. Why does it have to be so difficult in discussing test results?, who's the customer?.


I'd say you'd have to wait for your thyroid results, knowing the lower limit of .28 you stated could also come back with a high hormone level revealing hyperthyroidism, however until you get those results I've provided some reference material for you.


For a thyroid tutorial (page 4, post #36)
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=20189&page=4

Test results
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=19610

Reference ranges
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_r...lood_tests

Thyroid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroid_sti...ng_hormone

[Serenity]

Thanks for replying guys! And Lotus thanks for linking I just started digging into those articles/threads. I have my actual test results in front of me and I also got a call from the doctor's office which was even more useless than my initial visit.... Basically they said that the 2 tests where my levels are below the lower limits are things I "shouldn't worry about because hormone levels fluctuate all the time" sooooo..... evidently there was no point in me fighting with them to okay the tests seeing as any results that came back they'd just tell me "the levels fluctuate it doesn't matter" wont be going back to that doctor EVER. My results were as follows:

17-OH Progesterone LCMS: 25 ng/dL Adult female in follicular stage ranges- 15-70

Luteinizing Hormone: 6.6 mIU/mL follicular ranges 2.4-12.6

FSH: 5.6 mIU/mL follicular ranges 3.5-12.5

Testosterone: 19 ng/dL ranges 8-48

DHEA-Sulfate: 224.4 ug/dL ranges 110.0-431.7

TSH: .28 UIU/ML ranges .34-4.82

Prolactin: 3.3 ng/mL ranges 4.8-23.3


Anddddddd... with those results the only thing the doc had to say was it could be pcos (remind me again why she wouldn't test any form of estrogen ) for me to go on a birth control pill (already talked with her about not wanted to do that) or progesterone cream.... but when I asked about the recommended usage I was told to take it on the 30th day of my cycle for 10 days..which from what I could understand in my already agitated state was day 1 of period???


In any case I feel like I'm in the exact same spot i was before I had the testing done... or if anything now I'm even more confused as I wasn't expecting any thyroid issues..

The symptoms that led me to want the testing aside from NBE were heavy periods lasting at least a week, periods that always come early, mood swings, getting really emotional and crying alot lately which is unusual for me, VERY BAD chest and back acne out of nowhere which I've never experienced before, nausea in the morning almost like what I imagine morning sickness might feel like, bloating though that one I question if it's dietary or something else... But pretty much I laid that all out for the dr and all she had to say was unless the period exceeded 8 days it was still normal people's bodies are different blah blah blah and recommended spironolactone randomly for acne... she kept making comments about my weight saying If i was 300 pounds there were alternatives to the pill for my symptoms but since I'm so "tiny" etc there's nothing else... by the way I'm 5'7 and 140-145ish....

It's also seeming like since I don't have T3 or T4 levels to compare there's not much I can figure out about hypo vs. hyperthyroidism.... I just assume that in some way at least to a small degree my thyroids not doing as it's supposed to.

in the past my mom's been really sick and I have had way too many interactions with those God complex doctors.. who somehow think they know everything and will talk down to you like you're a moron even when a patient has educated themselves on the topic and probably knows more than the dr. It's like if it wasn't taught in medical school or in those shiny pamphlets from the pharmaceutical companies they act like it doesn't exist. BUT I digress. A test result comparison chart would be really helpful. In lieu of any meaningful input from a dr. it's way better than typing .28 tsh into google and hoping for the best lol!

[MichelleM]

Serenity,

I'm not the expert that Lotus is, but am a thyroid patient myself.

You are correct that you need your T3 and T4 levels to make a definitive statement, but let me take a stab at it.

Your body uses TSH to tell your thyroid whether to produce more T3 and T4. Given that it appears to be slightly low, it's likely that you're body thinks it has plenty of T3 and T4--slight hyperthyroidism.

(In contrast, my TSH was high, T3 and T4 low--hypothyroidism--and take Armour thyroid every morning.)

I hope that helps!

Michelle

[peggy]

17-OH Progesterone LCMS: 25 ng/dL Adult female in follicular stage ranges- 15-70

17-OH Progesterone is not the same as Progesterone, which should be tested one week after ovulation. 17-OH Progesterone is being tested to make sure that your adrenal glands are working normally and since your value is within the range I would not worry.

Luteinizing Hormone: 6.6 mIU/mL follicular ranges 2.4-12.6

GOOD.

FSH: 5.6 mIU/mL follicular ranges 3.5-12.5

GOOD.
Your LH/FSH quotient is 1.18 which is perfectly normal. A quotient of more than 2 is likely to occur in women with PCOS.

Testosterone: 19 ng/dL ranges 8-48

Seems OK. But they should have also check your free testosterone.

DHEA-Sulfate: 224.4 ug/dL ranges 110.0-431.7

GOOD.

TSH: .28 UIU/ML ranges .34-4.82

They should also check "free T3" and "free T4".
A low TSH is a sign for hyperthyroidism.

Prolactin: 3.3 ng/mL ranges 4.8-23.3

Could be higher.

Hope this helps.

[Serenity]

Thanks for your replies ladies that clarifies ALOT. The only thing that is slightly confusing to me is the link between TSH and prolactin, if there is one at all... lots of what I've read recently seems to say that if TSH is high so is prolactin???

And thanks for pointing that out peggy I read "progesterone" and assumed it was the one NBE is usually referring to... So essentially the few hormones that would be more relevant to both the symptoms I told the doc about and for NBE purposes have not been tested.... I am very tempted to get another doctor and revisit this but not sure I want to bother hassling the insurance company to cover it. And I also found out today I don't have gonorrhea or chlamydia YAY I'm so surprised I told the dr. I haven't had sex in 3 years... which i havent. and she made no mention of testing for those? But I just got paperwork in the mail that states that my results are normal LOL.