Can You Measure Estrogen Levels

The Hormone Test All Women Can Do At Home

While lab work like the Female Hormone Panel is super valuable information especially once you have a personal database of tests that track your bodys progress there are ways you can check in on your hormones, at home, without the assistance of your OBGYN. If youre experiencing symptoms like PMS, acne, low sex drive, mood swings the next time you get your period, look at what color it is! Like really look.

Look at the color of the bleed, the consistency, note how long your period is, how it starts and how it endsnumbers on a page can be hard to connect back to how you feel, but your period is right there in front of you. Its a part of you and its a visual indicator of whats going on with your hormones. You can tell what kind of hormone imbalance you are dealing with by observing:

• The color of your period blood
• The way it starts and the way it ends
• The consistency of the period blood
• The length of time you have your period
• How much you bleed

This easily observable, immediately accessible information is right there for your understanding. Notice it, note it, actually write it down if you like in a period diary and it can give you so much important information.

But, how to know what it all means?

Always remember, that once you have the right information about how your body really works, you can start making health choices that finally start to work for you! You can do this the science of your body is on your side!

to your FLO,

How To Test Your Estrogen Levels

Because hormones and their functions can be so varied, there is no one single test to detect hormonal imbalances and estrogen can be tested in one of three ways:

• Blood
• Urine
• Saliva

Each test involves a different level of medical support, and can give different snapshots of information. For instance, a saliva test collected over the course of a month can provide a more accurate picture than a one time blood draw. Other than a small prick at the point of a blood draw, there are no known risks to any of the collection methods, and no special preparations need to be taken before the test.

Reference Values Describes Reference Intervals And Additional Information For Interpretation Of Test Results May Include Intervals Based On Age And Sex When Appropriate Intervals Are Mayo

CHILDREN*

1-14 days: Estradiol levels in newborns are very elevated at birth but will fall to prepubertal levels within a few days.

Males

#Puberty onset occurs for boys at a median age of 11.5 years. For boys, there is no proven relationship between puberty onset and body weight or ethnic origin. Progression through Tanner stages is variable. Tanner stage V should be reached by age 18.

#Puberty onset occurs for girls at a median age of 10.5 years. There is evidence that it may occur up to 1 year earlier in obese girls and in African American girls. Progression through Tanner stages is variable. Tanner stage V should be reached by age 18.

*The reference ranges for children are based on the published literature, cross-correlation of our assay with assays used to generate the literature data, and on our data for young adults.

**E2 levels vary widely through the menstrual cycle.

Conversion factor

E2: pg/mL x 3.676=pmol/L

For SI unit Reference Values, see International System of Units Conversion

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How Early Can A Blood Test Detect That You’re Pregnant

Hormonal blood tests performed by a medical facility can detect pregnancy earlier than home pregnancy tests using urine. Blood tests can detect pregnancy between six and eight days after you ovulate. By contrast, home pregnancy tests should be taken after your period is late, which is between 12 and 16 days after ovulation. Waiting until this point can help you avoid false negatives or positives.

Signs Of Hormone Imbalance In Women

So often we attribute our body’s changes incorrectly. As women progress through life, the body responds differently, and it plays out in a number of ways.

1- Estrogen Imbalance

Estrogen is made by your ovaries, your adrenal glands, and to a much lesser extent, by your fat cells. It has many functions, including:

• Maintaining Bone Calcium
• Regulating HDL and LDL Cholesterol in Blood
• Helping Maintain Blood Sugar Levels
• Helping with Memory
• Balancing Emotions

Estrogen imbalance can cause numerous symptoms which will depend on whether you are experiencing an overabundance of the hormone or less of it. The causes and signs can be discerned, but they take a watchful eye. Too little estrogen is often caused by:

• Hypogonadism
• Hypopituitarism
• Failed Pregnancy

• Hot Flashes

3- Testosterone Imbalance

Testosterone is not just a male sex hormone. Women also have lesser amounts of this hormone. It is produced by your ovaries and adrenal glands. Testosterone has the important function of aiding you by protecting you against developing osteoporosis. It has many other effects on your health, including sex drive, mood, energy levels and body fat percentage.

If you have too much testosterone in your body, such as when you have a condition called polycystic ovary syndrome, you could experience:

• Irregular Periods
• Increased Body or Facial Hair
• Hair Loss
• Acne

Too little testosterone often occurs during menopause and can lower your sex drive, cause depression, weakness of your muscles and fatigue.

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What Does Estrogen Do

The function of this hormone is that it stimulates the development of secondary sex characteristics in women. Secondary sex characteristics are visible changes that happen to both men and women at puberty. Examples of these include the growth of pubic hair, enlargement of the breasts and widening of the hips in females.

Estrogen also:

• promotes the growth of the uterine lining and the muscular layer of the uterus
• maintains the health of the skin and bones, and
• helps protect the brain and the nervous system
• increases oxytocin. Oxytocin is a feel-good hormone that is involved in attachment to others. It is an antioxidant, has anti-inflammatory effects and moderates your nervous system.

In men, estradiol moderates libido and helps with erectile function and sperm production.

Hormonal Imbalance And Men

You may think that women are the ones facing hormonal imbalances. But this is not the case. Men, as well as womens bodies, produce several hormones that are essential for wellbeing. One very well-known male hormone is testosterone. But, did you know that men, also, produce estrogen? Testosterone is mainly produced in the testicles and, a small amount is produced in the adrenal glands. It is responsible for ones manly characteristics, such as:

• Facial and Body Hair
• Muscle and Bone Density
• Deeper Voice

It also stimulates the production of sperm and affects your desire for sex. It also plays a major role in the way one gains weight and, how and where the body will end up accumulating these fat cells. Finally, red blood cells production is linked to testosterone levels.

Estrogen is made from testosterone with the help of an enzyme known as aromatase. As you age, not only do your testosterone levels naturally drop, but your estrogen levels go up simultaneously. The loss of testosterone with age is referred to by some professionals as andropause male menopause.

However, testosterone levels can drop, even in young men, from several causes, such as:

• Injuries to Scrotum or Testicles
• Mumps
• Testicular Cancer
• Liver Disease

But, testosterone and estrogen arent the only hormones that can get out of balance in men. You can suffer a decrease in cortisol levels if you are under a lot of stress, or even an imbalance in the thyroid hormones.

Cortisol Imbalance

Thyroid Imbalance

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Common Symptoms Of A Hormonal Imbalance

Hormonal imbalances can cause many different symptoms. Some common issues to look out for include:

• Fatigue
• A bulge in the neck
• Puffy face

Many symptoms of a hormonal imbalance can be misleading. For example, both weight gain and weight loss can be symptomatic of a hormonal imbalance. So, it’s really difficult to just rely on symptoms to understand which specific hormone is the root of the problem. This is when getting tested becomes handy.

If you’re having trouble falling asleep, you may have low progesterone levels that are usually in charge of helping you fall asleep. On the other hand, high progesterone levels could be problematic as well, as these will make you feel sleepy even if you’re getting enough rest.

Low melatonin gives your body a signal that it’s time to rest. Low estrogen can give you night sweats that can be unbearable for many.

If you’re struggling with any symptom of a possible hormone imbalance, you need to get tested. Your hormone levels will depict the root cause of the symptoms you are experiencing and, you will be able to target them properly.

Test Estrogen Level: Overview

Estrogens are the hormones responsible for female sexual features such as breast development and the menstrual cycle. An estrogen test measures the level of the most important estrogens , usually through a blood sample.

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In women, estrogens are produced mainly in the ovaries . Small amounts are also produced by the adrenal glands. In men, small amounts of estrogens are produced by the adrenal glands and testicles. Small amounts of estrone are made throughout the body in most tissues, especially fat and muscle. This is the major source of estrogen in women who have gone through menopause.

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How To Reduce High Estrogen Levels

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Estrogen dominance is one of the most common hormonal imbalances, this article will guide you on how to reduce high estrogen levels.

Excess estrogen can have a negative impact on the quality of your life and cause a great number of health issues.

If you have high estrogen levels, this article is for you. You’ll find out how to naturally reduce high estrogen levels and gain control over your health.

Estrogen dominance can affect both women and men.

What Is High Or Low Estrogen Levels

Estrogen is a naturally occurring hormone that your body produces to aid in sexual development and other important body functions. Prior to menopause, women generate estrogen primarily from their ovaries. After that, most of their estrogen comes from fat cells and the adrenal glands found at the top of the kidneys. When estrogen levels get too high or too low, this can negatively affect the body.

Estrogen helps regulate the health of the following areas:

• Urinary tract
• Mucous membranes
• Brain

Estrogen plays an essential role in girls when they reach puberty, prompting changes like the growth of pubic hair and the start of menstruation. It also helps control cholesterol in the blood. Three of the most common types of estrogen produced in women include:

Estrone

Estrone is the main estrogen hormone produced by women after they hit menopause.

Estradiol

Estradiol is the primary estrogen hormone produced by non-pregnant women.

Estriol

Estriol is an estrogen hormone whose levels increase in pregnant women.

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Very Low Estrogen Levels During Menopause Complicate Assay Use Measurement

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Clinicians using mass spectrometry to measure hormone levels should exercise caution when assessing data from postmenopausal women, when very low estradiol levels are difficult to measure accurately.

Accurate measurement of very low levels of circulating estradiol in postmenopausal women is important to investigate sex steroid action in target tissues. However, immunoassays are inaccurate, and conventional mass spectrometry-based measurement is often too insensitive at typical postmenopausal levels of estradiol, which can run below 5 pg/mL.

For estradiol, assays were optimized for reproductive-age women to be able to measure estrogen across the menstrual cycle, professor in medicine, integrative physiology, director of the Pituitary Adrenal and Neuroendocrine Tumor Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and chief of endocrinology at Rocky Mountain Regional VAMC, told Endocrine Today. The immunoassays are not as sensitive as our old radioimmunoassays, but they work fairly well. The problem is that they are not standardized to measure the estradiol levels in pubertal children or postmenopausal women.

Pros, cons of mass spectrometry

The technology also brings disadvantages, Auchus said: It is expensive and technically demanding, and the instruments, on the best days, are fragile.

Need for standardization

What Causes A Hormonal Imbalance

The causes of hormonal imbalances vary according to the specific hormone involved. However, in general, they are due to changes or dysfunctions of a hormone-producing gland. For instance, a thyroid gland that isn’t functioning correctly may produce too much thyroid hormone, accelerating your bodys metabolism or could produce too little. Thyroid dysfunction can be caused by autoimmune diseases, thyroid nodules, medications or, rarely, thyroid cancer, among other potential causes. Imbalances in male or female sex hormones, such as estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, can be caused by age-related changes, such as menopause and andropause, as well as genetic disorders, stress, nutritional issues, or medications. Excessive stress, poor diet, aging and certain medications can contribute to imbalances in cortisol and other adrenal hormones.

There are many different underlying causes that can result in a hormonal imbalance. Each cause relates to different glands and hormones and, does impact your body differently. Many diseases and other conditions can result in a hormonal imbalance.

Diabetes

Diabetes is characterized by an inability to properly use the insulin hormone. An insulin imbalance can lead to other related hormonal imbalances as well such as disrupting estrogen, testosterone, thyroid, progesterone, and cortisol.

Hypothyroidism or Hyperthyroidism

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Cushing Syndrome

Addison’s Disease

Turner Syndrome

Prader-Willi Syndrome

Pancreatitis

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Stimulation And Suppression Hormone Testing

We use tests called stimulation and suppression tests to evaluate a hormone imbalance. We give you hormones and other substances that either start or stop your production of certain hormones. We then evaluate how your body responds.

Common types of stimulation and suppression testing include:

• Growth hormone response to glucagon: We inject a hormone, glucagon, into muscle tissue and measure growth hormone levels over four hours. This test helps us confirm or rule out adult growth hormone deficiency.
• Cortisol response to cosyntropin: We give you cosyntropin, which acts like ACTH . ACTH is a hormone produced in the pituitary gland that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce cortisol. We measure cortisol levels every 30 minutes for one hour. This test helps us confirm adrenal insufficiency.
• Glucose tolerance test: We give you a sweet drink, which should lower levels of growth hormone. We measure levels of growth hormone in the blood every two hours. This test helps us confirm acromegaly.
• Cortisol response to dexamethasone: You take a pill at night that should block cortisol production. The next day we take a blood sample to measure cortisol levels. This test helps us confirm or rule out Cushing’s syndrome.
• Metyrapone suppression test: You take a pill at night that should block cortisol production. The next day we take a blood sample to measure cortisol and ACTH levels. This test helps us confirm or rule out adrenal insufficiency.

Men And Estrogen: What You Need To Know

Estrogen is known primarily as a female hormone that helps regulate menstrual cycles, yet the hormone plays a bigger role in mens health than most people realize. Men produce small amounts of estrogen as part of their normal functioning male reproductive system, along with the male hormone testosterone. As they age, less testosterone is produced.

Yet questions are beginning to emerge as to what specific part estrogen plays in male development, especially as a man ages. Once largely ignored, estrogen levels in men are now under the microscope as researchers are trying to determine this hormone’s role in men and how it affects the body’s different hormone levels.

A decrease in estrogen, for example, may be a factor in fat accumulation in men as well as women. One endocrinologist at Harvard Medical School reported in a 2013 study that some of the symptoms of testosterone deficiency in males, including a decline in libido, were at least partially caused by lower estrogen production.

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What Is An Estrogen Test

An estrogen test is a way for your doctor to help check on concerns with puberty, fertility, menopause, and other conditions.

Your doctor may also call these estradiol, estrone , estradiol , estriol , or estrogenic hormone tests.

Estrogen is the hormone that plays a key role in many aspects of a womanâs health, such as bone and reproductive health. There are several forms of estrogen?

If your doctor needs to check to see if you might have a condition caused by too much or too little of a certain estrogen type, they may recommend that you take an estrogen test. Itâs a simple blood test, and it can measure up to three types of this estrogen:

• Estrone, or E1, the main hormone women make after menopause
• Estradiol, or E2, the main hormone women make when they arenât pregnant
• Estriol, or E3, a hormone women make more of when theyâre pregnant

Keep Toxic Chemicals Out Of Your Home

• Choose chemical-free and biodegradable laundry and household cleaning products. As an alternative way, you can create your own detergent with baking soda, washing soda, Borax, and gentle bar soap.
• Use chlorine-free products and unbleached paper products .
• Install high-quality filters in your house to clean the water from chlorine, fluoride and other industrial chemicals.
• Reduce plastic products to the maximum. Avoid plastic water bottles, food containers, and bags.
• Purchase furniture for your house carefully. Avoid furniture bathed in flame-retardants which are xenoestrogens. Instead, try to find flame-retardant-free furniture. Also, it is better to use natural latex foam cushions.

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