I took the plunge and tested my saliva cortisol levels. I know 12-hour salivary cortisol levels don't say much but I wanted to get a grip around if my cortisol is high or low or normal or whatever the results would show. I've always suspected my cortisol was low due to my ME/CFS symptoms and because I've tested borderline low when measuring morning cortisol in serum, but after looking long and hard at my clinical picture I felt that perhaps my symptoms and signs more so align with elevated cortisol levels.
Either way, I decided to order a 12-hour salivary cortisol test just to get some idea and these were the results. I was pretty surprised to learn that I actually have elevated levels of cortisol in the afternoon.
Is there anyone here who's good at decoding a cortisol curve? Should these results instigate a suspicion of anything or are they likely normal/insignificant?
6 am: 6.76 (ref range. 1.8 - 14.5 ng/m)
8 am: 2.95 (ref range. 1.3 - 10.3 ng/m)
11 am: 7.12* (ref range. 0.7 - 5.7 ng/m)
3 pm: 5.52* (ref range. 0.6 - 4.7 ng/m)
6 pm: 4.31* (ref range. 0.3 - 3.3 ng/ml)
I also created a poll to learn more about other's experiences of doing saliva cortisol testing!