Cortisol Test Price in Pakistan: PKR 1,750 at Marham Lab

Cortisol is a hormone made by your adrenal glands, two small glands that sit above your kidneys. MedlinePlus explains that it affects almost every organ and tissue in the body, helping you respond to stress, reducing inflammation, controlling blood glucose and metabolism, and controlling blood pressure. It is sometimes called the stress hormone. A cortisol test measures how much is in your blood. At Marham Lab it costs PKR 1,750.

Book the wrong slot and the number means nothing, so this comes before everything else on the page.

MedlinePlus states that cortisol levels vary during the day, and that blood samples are usually taken twice on the same day: once in the morning when levels are normally at their highest, and again around 4 pm, when levels are normally much lower. It is equally direct that for a blood test you will need two appointments at different times on the same day.

This is why Marham Lab lists the test twice.

Check what your doctor wrote. If they asked for both, book both slots on the same day rather than spreading them across two days, because the pair is read against each other.

MedlinePlus notes most of your cortisol is in the blood, so tests often use a blood sample, but some passes into urine and saliva and measuring it there is also an accurate way to estimate the blood level.

MedlinePlus adds that a provider may order more than one type of test to understand your cortisol pattern.

For the 24 hour urine collection, the instructions matter. MedlinePlus describes the method: urinate normally to begin and do not collect that first sample, note the time, then collect all urine for the next 24 hours, keep the container refrigerated or in a cooler with ice throughout, and try to urinate one final time at the 24 hour mark as the last collection.

MedlinePlus says a cortisol test helps diagnose or rule out conditions that cause too much or too little cortisol.

Your pituitary gland makes ACTH, which tells your adrenal glands how much cortisol to produce. MedlinePlus notes that a cortisol level that is too high or too low may therefore point to a problem with either gland. Cortisol testing is also used to monitor treatment for these conditions.

MedlinePlus lists the symptoms that prompt testing.

Too much cortisol, which may suggest Cushing's syndrome: weight gain, thin arms and legs, a round face, increased fat around the base of the neck or between the shoulder blades, easy bruising, wide purple streaks on the stomach, breasts, hips and under the arms, and muscle weakness.

Too little cortisol, which may suggest Addison disease or adrenal insufficiency: long lasting fatigue, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, weight loss, and abdominal pain.

MedlinePlus notes that without treatment, cortisol levels that are too high or too low can be very serious. These are symptoms to take to a doctor rather than to self investigate.

MedlinePlus is clear that a cortisol test alone cannot diagnose the cause of an abnormal level, and that if your result is not normal you will usually have more tests to find out why.

It also makes a point worth reading carefully: an abnormal result does not always mean you have a condition needing treatment. The most common cause of an abnormal cortisol level is taking steroid medicines for a long time, or stopping them suddenly.

Beyond medicines, MedlinePlus lists several ordinary things that affect cortisol.

• Stress
• Pregnancy
• Exercise
• Hot and cold temperatures
• Certain medicines, such as birth control pills

There is one more pattern worth knowing. MedlinePlus describes high cortisol levels that come and go in some people, sometimes called pseudo-Cushing's syndrome, meaning false Cushing's syndrome. It lists depression, anxiety, alcohol use disorder, poorly controlled diabetes and obesity among the causes. Testing is used to tell this apart from the real thing.