I'm a man ;-)

Hi Luis,

It sounds like you've got something going on to suddenly start to feel fatigue, then panic attacks and hives, with no prior history of anxiety.

It's never easy to say what is causing what, and we're all on a path of figuring that out, as for each person it's a different causation. Hence why something will work for one person with anxiety and not for another.

A doctor often says that hormone testing is inaccurate. They should read more of their peers studies and get up to speed on which methods are best for which hormones.
The US army and government funded studies mainly use salimetrics for hormone testing as their very OWN studies show the accuracy of the values when compared to serum results, oftentimes giving more accurate free levels than what they can obtain from blood.

Cortisol levels taken via saliva for medical research is the most common because the studies show it to be the most accurate out of all methods to assess cortisol.

I am going to do a post on this someday when i have the time, as it's often questioned over and over and i too questioned it many times, which tests are most accurate and when men /women should be tested. I've done weeks of research into it before embarking on tests myself.

Why would they use saliva in the army or for studies if the values are highly inaccurate as all doctors continually tell patients?
I do understand why you have no faith in doctors, like most here!
Most medical doctors did not qualify to specialise in a medical field, and so they end up as a GP General Practitioner. It's ironic that the first port of call an ill person has to get health care is from a 'doctor' who failed to specialise further in medicine and indeed did NOT obtain a Doctorate in ANYTHING. Yet they call themselves 'Doctors'.
Just like you have people parading as 'Doctor' on the internet, selling health products, who did not receive their doctorate in medicine. David Jubb, Doug Graham and the other fakers out there.

For you to have your testosterone levels show up deficient twice is good info to look into further.
Testosterone aids in libido, (amongst other hormones), it gives us physical strength, and also gives us confidence.
Many people would say, just take testosterone! Which obviously solves the problem of deficiency but WHY you have low T levels is something to be investigated further.

Again, IF you are making excess cortisol due to stress then you'll have cortisol being prioritised over other hormone production which can lead to a deficiency in other hormones.

Dr lam talks a lot about the impact on hormones production due to adrenal/stress/HPA system imbalance:

http://www.drlam.com/articles/adrenal_fatigue.asp




As you have low testosterone and have an anxiety issue, you could supplement with T for a while to see if it helps with anxiety. If it eliminates your anxiety then you know that low T is the cause of your anxiety. Although, like i said, finding out why you have low T is something to research more on.

I personally don't merit the eye 'light' test as like you, have done it on other people and everyone has a enlarging and contracting instability. It's not much of an accurate measure of aldosterone.

The body temperature test is worthwhile doing. However, rather than just doing the morning test, the best way to determine levels is to do it for a couple of weeks or longer, and take your temperature 3 hours after waking, then test again 3 hours after that, and another test 3 hours after that.
So you take 3 temperature readings in the day, 3 hours apart.
You add up all your results of the day and divide by 3 to get an average temperature for the day.

Thyroid issues tend to show a lowered, yet constant low temperature. Yet adrenal issues will show a lowered results that rises and lowers and is unstable from day to day.

This site is very good at explaining the temperature differences of adrenal and thyroid issues:

http://www.drrind.com/therapies/metabolic-temperature-graph


You can print out a temp. chart here to plot your own results on so you can visually see your metabolic temp. pattern:

http://www.drrind.com/forms.html#tempgraph


You TSH values have improved then from 2010. Perhaps the supplements you have been taking have helped your thyroid to function better. With a TSH of 4.359 would be hypothyroid, and if that number has dropped to 2. something then thyroid function has improved. Obviously without the FT3 and FT4 TPO numbers the TSH alone is hard to *fully* gauge thyroid function.

Morning stomach pain with sore throat is unusual with AF. It's hard to say the cause of such symptoms but it's interesting the supplements eliminated those symptoms so fast. It's easy to get nutritionally depleted when ill/stressed and the essentials such as C, Mag, D etc often help most people.

Overall, your main issues is the anxiety with it's associated symptoms and low libido, both which could be a result of your low Testosterone.
Morning fatigue is common with AF, and the anxiety and libido too, so it is worth doing a saliva cortisol/DHEAS panel to see the adrenal results, as your thyroid results don't seem too bad.

Do you have weight issues? Underweight or gained weight which is hard to lose? Normally thyroid and adrenal issues cause weight problems.

The panel i took covered Cortisol X4, DHEA-s, Testosterone, Estradiol, Progesterone, Saliva.
Blood - TSH, FT3, FT4, TPO, Vit D.
It cost me around 200 pounds Sterling/ 240 Euro through canaryclub.org using ZRT lab.
I didn't use dry ice/overnight courier. Refrigerate your samples of saliva, or freeze until the day you post them. I used a 3 day post service but it was late and got there on day 5. Irish postal service is rubbish!

Keep looking for answers and trying things...it seems like you have good instincts as you've helped eliminate your morning symptoms so keep following your instincts and you'll be on the journey of recovery :-)