Excersing the night before Cortisol and ACTH blood test

[pheadra88]

i was training for a marathon tht week, and on the night before my blood test, was the actual marathon (2 hours long), i came home and only had 3-4 hours of sleep, then i had to wake up and get my blood test done at 9 am. I am a confirmed Hashimoto's patient, levothyroxine made me feel worse,so my endo told me to get this blood test for my adrenals done.. (cant do saliva testing, not recognised in my country)

the results
Cortisol 17.91 mmg
DHEA-S 8.3 um/l.....(0.9 - 11.7)        
ACTH 29 pg/ml........(0 - 46)
Insulin 8.4uU/ml.......(3 - 25)


Please advise me if, i need to do a retest of these hormones. Cause i dont think my doc will put me on any treatment with these results

[ggma1000]

Levothyroxine is T4. It must be converted to T3 for the body to use. There may be many reasons it is not being converted. From what I have found out, very few Hash. are able to convert it. Low cortisol is only one factor, low oxygen uptake in the cells is another, but I seldom see that even mentioned, much less addressed, and there are many other factors as well. Many Hash. do well on desicated thyroid (Armour is the scrip. but other brands may be found OTC). It may not be wise to take the levothyroxine if it is not helping you because it may suppress the TSH enough that the doctors think it is helping.

[rumpled]

Yes. You did not sleep.

I would call the lab and ask for the reference range - odd that it is not printed there. It should be there.

Also, I try to get my tests done earlier. Cortisol peaks earlier - they say 8-10am on the lab ranges, but the cortisol peaks at 8am so after that , it is going to drop. Your weird sleep pattern the night before may have skewed the results.

[pheadra88]

Its funny, they didnt give a reference range for my cortisol.. so i am not sure if its high or low..

Do u think this results are foul? because of the marathon i did the night before?

i finished the two hour race at 9pm. i came home.. and i couldnt sleep till at least 3-4am. cause my body was so wound up. Then i had to wake up bout 7.30am and drive to the hospital to get my blood test done. (even then, i didnt feel so drowsy, though my body was dead tired)

[rumpled]

Is there a range on the cortisol?

The rest look normal but I am not sure I would have tested right after a marathon.