Hormone Test Lab Interpretation in Raleigh, NC
Most of them tend to be women with commonly seen symptoms of significant mood swings, heavy and painful periods, bloating, water retention, frequent bleeding and low libido. However, many men experience hormonal imbalance as well which often manifests as “low energy”, muscle weakness and poor strength, belly fat, mood swings, ED, as well as low libido.
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Hormone imbalance is one of the most common reasons clients call my office for help.
If you simply check in at any conventional medical clinic for help you’d be lucky to have them run ANY hormone tests. However, if you are able to convince them to run tests, they are often the wrong ones. Often times an inexperienced practitioner will order a simple estrogen test for a female blood test and a simple testosterone test for a male blood test. These singular tests give us very little information. To best understand our complex and interconnected hormone system so that we can fully assess for hormone balance you cannot just look at one hormone. We are MUCH more complex than that! We need to look at the relationship between multiple hormones – also how well the body handles breaking those hormones down.
Did you know there are three estrogens? Estrone, estradiol and estriol. Estradiol is the strongest of the three estrogens and most important in reproductive age women but may drop rapidly as a woman reaches menopause. While these hormone levels are important so is understanding how successfully each is broken down (detoxed) in the liver to create protective metabolites (breakdown products). While our bodies (men and women) make estrogens we also need to detox them properly for sustained hormonal and overall health. It’s not only elevated estrogen levels that can cause disease but poorly detoxed estrogen metabolites can cause estrogen-dominant cancers (breast, uterine and prostate) as well. They are also strongly tied to poor metabolism, belly fat, feeling of being puffy and weight loss or inability to lose weight. We must get all our facts (labs) before we can treat and restore balance effectively!
Progesterone can be a very protective hormone and can, in fact, prevent some of the damage that too much estrogen can cause. However, we see it often decline quickly in peri-menopause while estrogen often takes a longer time to decline. The ratio between progesterone and estrogen levels is a crucial component of hormone balance as well as cancer prevention.
Testosterone is a male-dominant hormone and prescribed freely to men and women alike. However, testosterone easily converts to estrogen. If we once again do not have a full picture and prescribe testosterone without assessing downstream conversion to estrogen and estrogen metabolites we could be putting that client in harm’s way.
I see this too much! A male client presents to a clinic with low libido and ED. Practitioner prescribes testosterone. Client continues testosterone treatment but doesn’t see results he hoped for. Practitioner raises testosterone dosage and client still doesn’t see those promised results. Eventually we test estrogens and estrogen metabolites and see that he’s shunting all the testosterone down the estrogen pathway and has high levels of dangerous estrogen metabolites because his liver isn’t detoxing them well. Or a female client’s results show low estrogen via blood test, and she is put on bioidentical estrogens. When we test all three estrogens and metabolites, we see her downstream detox is poor and she’s building up highly dangerous estrogen metabolites. Both scenarios are way too common and totally avoidable if comprehensive hormone testing was used. It allows for hormone balance treatments to be better focused on the root of the problem rather than adding to the dysfunction.
My favorite comprehensive hormone balance test is the DUTCH Complete. It not only gives clear sex hormone and metabolite results but it also shows multiple cortisol (stress hormone) and cortisol metabolite results as well as Nutritional Organic acids. And all from urine collection that you can do in your own home!
We must stop just throwing hormones (even bioidentical hormones) at clients! Most actually need improvement or enhancement of downstream detoxification rather than loading them with more hormones – even natural ones!
Hormone Test Lab Interpretation
Choose what Test is right for you, here are our options:
Dutch Lab Test
WHAT YOU GET FROM THE TEST:
✓ An extensive hormone picture with a comprehensive breakdown of sex and adrenal (stress) hormones.
✓ Understanding of how you use and balance your own hormones.
✓ Much more accurate assessment of hormone values.
✓ Extensive estrogen and cortisol metabolite testing.
✓ Better understanding of how balanced your hormones are (or aren’t).
✓ Great information on hormone health without the commitment to a more comprehensive health approach.
✓ Results in 2-3 weeks after collecting.
✓ Actionable results.
WHAT YOU GET FROM INTERPRETATION:
✓ A thorough breakdown of your hormone results.
✓ A discussion on what these results mean for your health.
✓ Expert treatment strategy and recommendations based on YOUR result.
GI Map Test
WHAT YOU GET FROM THE TEST:
✓ Comprehensive and accurate gut health stool test.
✓ Most advanced and accurate technology to truly assess the microbiome.
✓ Get the digestive results you’re missing from other testing.
✓ Answers to your gut health problems – bloating, Constipated, Diarrhea, Reflux, IBS.
✓ Evaluates multiple aspects of microbiome balance, strength, and resilience. ✓ Evaluates gut inflammatory markers.
✓ Provides an insight to actionable nutrition, lifestyle, and supplement recommendations to more favorably support the ecology of your microbiome.
✓ Useful info on not only pathogens but on healthy gut bacteria.
✓ Great information on how well your body is able to make and utilize numerous crucial nutrients.
WHAT YOU GET FROM INTERPRETATION:
✓ A thorough breakdown of your gut results.
✓ A discussion on what these results mean for your health.
✓ Expert treatment strategy and recommendations based on YOUR result.
If you feel you need more help than testing alone, inquire and book your
“I believe that all physical disease has an emotional, mental and spiritual component therefore healing must take place on all of these levels. This involves a strong commitment on the part of my patient because all healing occurs from within. Utilizing a comprehensive approach based in functional medicine, full diagnostic testing, nutritional planning and common sense, I partner with my patients to educate and support them on how they can truly improve their health and their life on all levels.”
Dr. Kelley Reis is a Board-certified Naturopathic Physician, Functional Wellness Expert and a Kentucky native. She graduated from The National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon and has been in practice since 2004 – successfully helping clients reach their goal of optimal wellness and vitality. Dr. Kelley’s passion is to help clients “fact find” and uncover root health issues and imbalance within the foundational systems of health: gut health, hormonal balance, detoxification and inflammatory responses. What makes this approach so successful is the focus on resolving the underlying inflammation and stress that cause the breakdown of health, resulting in chronic, degenerative diseases that are so prevalent in today’s society.
Driven to truly help patients get to the root cause of their health issues, Dr. Kelley’s functional approach focuses on the WHOLE person. While she does utilize nutritional supplementation in her practice, she does not just manage patient symptoms with supplements. She believes that a person CANNOT simply be “supplemented back to health” – an individualized and comprehensive approach to treat the whole person is the key!