At-home menopause assessments (additionally known as “hormone panels” or “feminine well being and hormone panels”) are a rising enterprise. These assessments goal to assist girls know once they’re getting into menopause to allow them to take steps to alleviate signs.
“This leaves many ladies not sure of what to consider, and may end up in both undertreatment or use of unproven approaches.”
Right here’s what Dr. Christakis and different healthcare professionals who deal with girls in menopause need you to learn about these direct-to-consumer assessments.
What Is Hormone Panel Testing?
Hormone panel testing appears for particular hormone ranges within the blood associated to feminine reproductive well being, together with follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), estradiol, and progesterone, says Lauren Streicher, MD, a scientific professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern College Feinberg Faculty of Medication in Chicago who didn’t contribute to the editorial.
The idea is that if a lady has decrease ranges of those hormones, she is experiencing perimenopause (the years main as much as menopause when intervals turn out to be irregular) or in menopause (the primary 12 consecutive months {that a} girl doesn’t have a interval).
At-Residence Menopause Exams Have Pitfalls, Say Docs
“Menopause is a scientific analysis, and hormone testing is pointless,” Christakis says. Meaning you might be identified throughout a go to to your physician, with out testing, based mostly generally on signs, age, and menstrual patterns.
There’s whole consensus on this amongst main well being teams, Christakis provides, together with the American School of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Menopause Society.
Plus at-home menopause assessments are too restricted to supply any actual diagnostic worth, critics say. “Assessing reproductive hormones, which fluctuate very extensively over the course of a menstrual cycle — 10- to 20-fold for estrogen and progesterone, much more for LH and FSH — is hazardous and has truly proved to be inaccurate in most conditions,” says Nanette Santoro, MD, a professor and the E. Stewart Taylor Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the College of Colorado Faculty of Medication in Aurora, who wasn’t concerned within the editorial.
Dr. Streicher factors out that these assessments merely present a snapshot of the place a lady’s hormone ranges are in a particular second. “It’s reflective of what your hormone ranges had been once you had the check, however not total,” Streicher says.
Ladies Need Solutions About Their Altering Well being
Docs level out that girls are shopping for these assessments, although the panels don’t supply a lot data. “The demand from girls comes from a way that ‘issues don’t really feel proper’ and the suspicion that one’s reproductive hormones are accountable for this,” Dr. Santoro says.
“These notions are often appropriate. However there are not any requirements in opposition to which the measurements predict signs, and there are recognized, easy, and low-risk methods to deal with the signs.”
Streicher says it’s comprehensible for ladies to need to know what’s occurring with their very own our bodies, they usually typically need solutions rapidly. “You probably have a health care provider — and never everybody does — it could take a very long time to be seen,” she says. “A house check may give you solutions rapidly, however this sort of check shouldn’t be helpful.”
What to Do As an alternative of Taking a Hormone Panel
Should you’re experiencing uncomfortable signs of perimenopause or menopause, Christakis recommends wanting up data from dependable sources like nationwide well being pointers or medical organizations just like the Menopause Society, ACOG, and the Endocrine Society.
“These societies have lists of accredited menopause healthcare suppliers,” Christakis says. “Asking questions, weighing choices, and avoiding fast fixes marketed on-line will help make sure you get care that meets your wants.”
ACOG additionally affords a information for ladies, written by Santoro, on tips on how to spot menopause misinformation.
In the end, docs say at-home menopause assessments are dangerous to girls. “The harms come from waste,” Santoro says. “It wastes cash, it wastes time making an attempt to interpret assessments that actually don’t have any worth, and there might be false irregular outcomes that result in additional ineffective testing.”
