DUTCH

First of all, the timing is hilarious.  Mike Mutzel interviewed the Medical Director of Precision Analytical the company that makes the DUTCH test.  They talked in a secret geek code for snippets of time which made to hard to follow, enough to make me listen 3 times trying to get it all. I loved her statement that we need to stop saying adrenal fatigue (or burnout) because the adrenals don't stop making their hormones, the whole hormone system is off from repeated stressors.  In our case a big part of the problem is SIBO and the amount of nutrients the bacteria steal from us.  I think it has a big impact on our ability to make neurotransmitters and to properly synthesize all these hormones correctly and man we feel it! In a weird coincidence I got my DUTCH results the same day I listened to the podcast.  I watched a lot of Precision Analytical videos but they seem to be on an older report so it didn't match up well.  

I have an appointment tomorrow evening to go over the results with Dr. Pomeroy (the medical director of my nutrition certification program).  It will be good to make heads or tails out of all this.  

So what do I think so far???  My thyroid may be playing a big part.  I've wanted to think I can get off my thyroid medications (S-R T-3) but all these hormones have such an interplay that I may have to just suck it up and realize I just may never convert T-4 to T-3 effectively. Dr. Keller believed I wouldn't kick SIBO until I straightened out my thyroid, maybe she had a point.  So on to the results.  I stopped using any adrenal support 2-3 weeks prior to testing and immediately started feeling better.  If you remember from my previous post supplementing caused my cortisol to plummet.  Off supplements my cortisol bounced back and boy could I feel it.  Not like I was ready to conquer the world but I enjoyed physical activity again, it didn't feel so hard.  So it appears my body makes a decent amount of cortisol but shunts much of it to cortisone, the unusable form.  It can synthesize it back and forth in various parts of the body.  My sex hormones are all low and it looks like I have issues with hormone methylation.  My cortisol metabolites were all low which means while I am making plenty of cortisol my body just isn't processing it, my actual metabolized cortisol was really low.

The program I am in likes to supplement hormones (DHEA and Pregenolone) to get the body back on tract but I'm not sure it's necessary, especially when you do a more indepth test like this and find out it's not about the actual production of the hormone itself but more the body's ability to process those hormones into usable forms.  How do I support that other than the obvious, heal the gut?  Not sure.  Stay tuned.