You’ve probably established a good remote work routine by now. You angle your camera to only show the clean parts of your house. You dress up just enough to look professional, even if you’re wearing pajama bottoms. You remember to turn off the background from your last virtual hangout before meeting with your work team.
While you might not think so, chances are that you do a lot of medical procedures at home. You take medication, bandage cuts, or ice up after a hard run. And you could start testing your hormones.
At-home hormone tests can be an easy and discreet way to gain insight into your body and identify the source of distressing symptoms. In a time when going to see a hormone specialist may seem difficult, these tests can be crucial to regaining balance and getting back to the life you want. By learning how at-home hormone tests work and connecting with a telehealth hormone specialist, getting tested and getting better can happen without ever stepping into a doctor’s office.
At-Home Testing Has Come a Long Way
There is a very good chance you or someone you know has already used some form of at-home hormone testing. After all, that is essentially what a pregnancy test is. But at-home hormone testing has come a long way in the last generation, allowing for detection of a wide variety of ailments and illnesses, including women-specific cancers. Significantly, at-home testing is also becoming an increasingly popular way to try to identify hormone imbalances and detect age-related hormonal changes.
So how reliable are these tests?
Researchers found that the sampling methods used by at-home tests are comparable to more invasive methods commonly used in clinical settings. A 2019 study comparing venipuncture and fingerstick sampling for testing fertility-related hormones found that both sample collection methods resulted in “a high degree of precision…and a high level of accuracy.” In fact, the researchers asserted that fingerstick sampling and venipuncture can be used interchangeably to assess a broad spectrum of hormones, including estradiol, testosterone, TSH, and free T4.
However, the possibilities of at-home testing go beyond fingerstick sampling.
How At-Home Hormone Tests Work
Hormones like testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone play a critical role in physical and emotional wellness throughout life. When you experience the symptoms of a hormone imbalance or deficiency, it’s critical to examine your hormonal status. At-home tests allow you to begin this process from the comfort of your own home.
Depending on the hormones being tested, at-home testing may involve a variety of samples. These include:
- Saliva
- Urine
- Blood (fingerstick)
Collection of these samples is relatively simple and painless. Once the samples are collected, you can mail them directly to a laboratory for analysis.
Choosing the Best At-Home Hormone Test
At-home hormone testing can be an easy and private way of gaining insight into your body and your symptoms. However, testing alone is not enough.
To make meaning out of your hormone levels, you first have to be sure that you’re measuring the right ones. Consulting with a hormone specialist to discuss your symptoms and health goals is the first step to making the best testing choices. They have the training and experience necessary to determine which hormones should be examined and can send a testing kit right to your home.
It’s also important to understand that the results reported from these tests alone are unlikely to be useful to you. Over-the-counter tests, in particular, start and end with the test, offering no meaningful diagnosis or plan. A telehealth hormone specialist, however, can comprehensively analyze your hormone levels, symptomatology, overall health status, and medical history to provide a more complete diagnostic picture of the specific patient—without you having to leave your home. They can also make recommendations with respect to whether further testing is necessary.
Critically, your specialist can make a plan tailored specifically for you. Ideally, that is how at-home hormone tests work—they provide reliable data that steers you toward solutions. What this solution looks like depends on your individual needs. If hormone levels are identified as the cause of your symptoms, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can be formulated according to your unique hormonal profile. Diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes may also play a vital role in re-establishing balance and improving your quality of life. Through ongoing discussions with your practitioner and follow-up testing, your progress can be monitored to ensure you are meeting your goals.
As you can see, realizing the real potential of at-home hormone tests requires connecting with a hormone specialist who can offer the expert analysis and personalized support you need.
Regaining Your Balance
Hormone imbalance can throw everything off. Your energy levels, your mental health, your ability to connect or be intimate—these may all be affected when your hormones aren’t where they should be. That’s why at-home testing and telehealth HRT are so valuable; they can help you find your way back to yourself. With at-home testing and the support of a telehealth hormone specialist, you can start this journey in the privacy of your own home.
If you want more guidance on how at-home hormone tests work, BodyLogicMD can help. The practitioners in the BodyLogicMD network are experts in hormone health and want to help you understand the challenges of your changing body. With telehealth and at-home hormone testing, a BodyLogicMD-affiliated practitioner can assess your needs and can create a personalized BalancePro plan to help you achieve your health goals. Set up your telehealth consultation, or take the BodyLogicMD Hormone Balance Quiz to learn more about how hormones may be affecting your everyday life.
Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. All content on this website is for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent diseases.
