17 Facts About Hormone Testing

1. There are no saliva or urinary tests that provide reliable information for treating hormone
conditions.

2. Hormone blood tests can provide some helpful information in certain situations, but according to expert guidelines, they are rarely needed.**

3. At Swor Women’s Care, we believe this too.

4. Some clinics and practitioners emphasize and even require blood testing in all patients, but this practice is not standard of care in the realm of designated women’s health
experts.

5. With that said, we do offer hormone blood testing by request and in situations where
things are not clear.

6. We actually require blood testing hormone panels before and during hormone treatment with estrogen and testosterone pellet therapy.

7. Testing as a primary guide for choosing doses of hormone therapy is considered unreliable because of metabolic fluctuations over any time period even throughout a day.

8. Hormone processing in the body (pharmacokinetics), binding in the bloodstream and effects on cells vary between individual people and in the same person at different times. This makes “levels” not as meaningful.

9. This is especially true in reproductive age women and the perimenopause.

10. The best acceptable way to evaluate patients and monitor perimenopausal and menopausal hormone therapy is by symptoms and physical examination.

11. In post-menopausal woman, estrogen and progesterone levels are predictably low. Even when typical hormone therapy is being used, blood levels may be lower than “normal”.

12. Testosterone and DHEA levels vary quite a bit in different people at different times.

13. We will recommend hormone therapy and suggest changes regardless of levels in most
cases.

14. Progesterone predictably drops in most women over the 10-15 years prior to actual menopause. Supplementing natural progesterone is very safe and useful for many patients.

15. FSH and LH are normally high in menopause, when the ovaries stop egg production and estrogen and progesterone drop significantly.

16. Thyroid testing is helpful, but thyroid function at the organ or tissue level can be poor even with normal blood levels.

17. If you decide to have hormone blood testing done, the results need to be considered on an individual basis rather than normal, low or high. Clinical findings on examination and by symptom assessment absolutely need to take priority.

** 2022 Hormone Therapy Position Statement of the North American Menopause Society

Author

Swor Women's Care Dr MIchael Swor is the founder and managing OBGYN physician at Swor Women's Care. Posts and blog updates are provided with the help of his partners, Dr Jenny Lichon and Dr KASH, as well as other healthcare providers and staff in the practice.