DUTCH TESTING
picture courtesy of Karina Lago via Upslash
It’s not easy to find clarity around what’s happening with your hormones or fertility, or why you’re struggling with so many symptoms. Most people I talk to have no idea why they’re struggling and find their physicians aren’t very helpful in making it clear for them either.
It’s one of the reasons I created the Root Care Program; to help you understand the picture of your health, the root causes for your struggles, and how to care for them in a way that brings you to your health and life goals. One tool I find very useful for helping make things more clear for my clients is the DUTCH test.
The D.U.T.C.H. is a Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones. It’s an amazingly comprehensive hormone test that can be delivered to your home, and done in the privacy of your bathroom. Once completed, you ship your test to their lab, and in less than two weeks you will have a great deal of information about your hormonal health.
The DUTCH test that I run most often is the DUTCH Complete. This test looks at the hormones you are producing in your luteal phase and how well you’re metabolizing them. This includes your estrogens, progesterone, and androgens (such as testosterone and DHEA-S) and can help assess whether your symptoms or fertility issues are coming from an imbalance in the production of your hormones, or because of the way your body is breaking them down and excreting them.
It also tracks your daily adrenal output, looking at your cortisol (and cortisone) levels throughout the day, which can have a big impact on your sex hormones (and overall well-being) if you are not producing them well, or if they’re out of sync, or on overdrive. The test helps make clear why your hormones aren’t working for you in the way you wish they were, or why you’re always fatigued, feeling stressed or anxious, losing your sex drive, or having trouble sleeping.
I love that the DUTCH Complete also assesses your melatonin levels, which is an integral hormone for more than just sleep. Adequate production of melatonin is associated with good mental health and better egg quality. And fairly recently, the test got an upgrade and now includes an organic acids profile which can help give us clues about your B vitamin status, your levels of oxidative stress, potential gut dysbiosis, and inflammation.
DUTCH testing can be very informative for fertility issues, symptoms of perimenopause, PCOS, endometriosis, PMS, PMDD, or if you’re not sure why you’re feeling awful and you feel like your hormones are to blame.
The DUTCH test is paid for out of pocket (although some insurance companies will reimburse you) and you will need to work with a provider that is trained in reading the test. If you’re working with me in the Root Care Program you can receive the test at a low, provider cost.
You can find out more information about DUTCH testing here
You can view a sample report of the DUTCH complete here
Feel free to contact me if you have questions about the DUTCH test.
