[Sunny68]

Jaaaa.... exactly... saving up for the whole family to get tested here, that'll be a serious investment (husband, daughter and myself). We could go to the GP's office but that would require a lot of discussion for the test to be done on the correct days and I'd prefer urine over blood, too - in the end they'd probably do a blood test on some random day and only check for estrogen or something like that. So I'll rather pay...

Good to hear that the Maca will probably not be the culprit in your case - had read of so many people abandoning wonderful Maca due to having taken the raw form, so I thought I'd rather ask

Sunny and liberty when do you guys think a blood hormone test would best be done in my cycle? I know Peggy said bloods aren't reliable but at least they are free as a starting point ...

I've no idea. Surely the doctor should know if it's reliable and when to do it? They didn't say anything about that to me?? I'm not sure xx

The timing depends on what is "suspected" to possibly be out of balance.

At my age (46) and with a cycle of 27-29 days, it would e. g. be good to do a test around day 19-21 and see whether I was ovulating, what the progesterone vs. estrogen ratio is, etc..

As my daughter might be low in estrogen but not progesterone, I'd want to have her tested shortly before ovulating to catch the estrogen-"high" (but of course not only test her estrogen levels).

For a full cycle monitoring, repeat tests are done day 3-6, then again shortly before ovulating and finally, 5 days after ovulating. Whether or not GPs do the full range under insurance coverage (at least here) depends on the symptoms one has.