Interpreting Cortisol/DHEA saliva test

[thi1]

Hi!

I didn't find an MedHelp expert forum on or related to endocrinology as I'm trying to find someone who could interpret my cortisol/DHEA saliva test. Did I just miss it or there simply isn't one? Or could I post it here too?

[rumpled]

If you look on the top right of this page (and most any of the community pages), level with post a question, and even with the column to the right, there are choice such as health pages, discussions, members... under watch this discussion. Does that help?

Doctors are not that great with endocrine - odd since the endocrine system effects everything!!! Up to and including emotional and physical effects - so they are harder to diagnose.

[thi1]

Thank you very much rumpled for you're answer!

I haven't been feeling too good in last months after returning from Asia. I was diagnosed a month back with Reactive arthritis and IBS but I'm a little septic about these being the/only reasons. In the beginning doctors thought it was all psychological and prescribed me medicine for this even though I insisted it wasn't to do with that. Now I'm tapering down on those. I'm quite scared and hope this isn't something super serious. Is it?

I think I'll try to contact an private endocrinologist tomorrow. I'm sick and tired of this already. I went to one some time back and took up the adrenal glands and adrenal fatigue but he said my symptoms had nothing to do with that. I think an endocrinologist will take it more serious now with these results. I hope so..

What resources (health pages) do you mean?

[rumpled]

Not a doctor, and I am not familiar with that lab but it looks like you have a loss of diurnal rhythm in that you are too high in the morning and you pretty much stay on the higher end of the scale too. That can indicate too much cortisol aka Cushing's.  Elevated DHEA can be raised for a number of reasons - it should be investigated. It can be part of the Cushing's or another issue entirely.

One set of tests though is not diagnostic - plus you have to have other tests to determine the source of the cortisol (as in is it pituitary, adrenal or other). Imaging is also used. No test is perfect.

There are resources in the health pages.

[thi1]

Ok, thank you rumpled!

The test was done by Genova Diagnostics and the results are as following:

7AM-9AM 1.23 [0.27...1.18]
11AM-1PM 0.45 [0.10...0.41]
3PM-5PM 0.23 [0.05...0.27]
10PM-12AM 0.11 [0.03...0.14]

The DHEA level is out of range (too high) and so the ratio cant be calculated. I'm a "little" worried about this..

[rumpled]

There is no expert forum on endocrinology. I used to have Cushing's and took a lot of the tests so you can take your chance here.