Directions for Saliva Hormone Test

Hormones play large roles in body processes, especially reproduction. When hormones are out of whack, a person can experience problems like infertility, hot flashes, fatigue, and mood shifts. It is sometimes necessary to take a saliva test to measure hormone levels so that these kinds of health issues can be avoided or treated.

Timing and Saliva

• Always take the saliva sample about an hour before you eat. Enzymes in the food you eat and which are produced in the mouth as a start to the digestion process can interfere with the hormone test results. If you find it difficult to get saliva flowing without something to eat, try sticking a meal in the oven or crock pot that will take a while to finish but which will send food odors throughout your house. You can also stimulate saliva flow by drinking water. Don't try to do the test immediately after getting out of bed, since saliva production is a little slower when we sleep. Wait until after you've dressed and showered.

Hormone Treatments

• If you are using a topical or troche hormone, stop using them before doing the saliva test. Leave 12 hours of time between your last topical application and the start of the saliva test. For troche hormones, leave 36 hours. For example, if you know you'll do the saliva test tomorrow morning, then don't apply a topical cream with hormone later than 6 p.m. today. The idea is that the supplemental hormones have time to leave the body before the test so that only your own hormones are measured.

Gender

• Topical and troche hormones can throw off saliva hormone test results for both men and women, so regardless of your gender, if you normally take these supplemental hormones, you should follow the timing guidelines for stopping supplemental hormone use prior to testing. If you are a woman who is menstruating, then you have a narrow window in which to do the test: Try to do it on days 19 through 21 of your cycle. If you're male or are a menopausal woman not on hormone replacement, then you can do it any day.

  If you're female and use hormonal birth control, you can use birth control as usual when you do the test. It does not matter if you are using pills, a patch or an implant or insertion. Communicate your dosage and type of birth control to your doctor or lab technician, however, so that they can analyze the test results accurately.

Color Coding

• Don't ignore the colors on the saliva collection tubes or strips. These colors are used to distinguish what time of day the test was collected. This is necessary because hormones fluctuate throughout the day normally; mixing up the colors could affect test accuracy adversely.

Freezing

• If you are doing your test at home and need to send it to a laboratory, stick the samples in the freezer if you can't get them in the mail right away. The temperature drop helps the saliva and hormones within it from degrading.