Home › Blood tests › PCOS testing
PCOS testing
in London
Hormone testing and a proper conversation about symptoms that have probably been dismissed before.
Being told it is just your weight, or just stress
Most women who end up here have been round this before. Irregular periods, acne that will not settle, hair where you do not want it and thinning where you do, weight that behaves differently from everyone else's. And a series of appointments where none of it was joined up.
PCOS is one of the commonest hormonal conditions there is, and one of the most under-diagnosed. Estimates suggest a large proportion of women who have it do not know. It is not a diagnosis of exclusion and it is not something to be talked out of.
What a blood test does is measure what is actually happening: whether you are ovulating, what your androgens are doing, and whether something else entirely, such as your thyroid, is behind it. The time with the GP to go through it is the part that matters most.
What happens
Testing, and what it can settle
The £89 consultation covers the appointment. The hormone profile is £156.
What the bloods show
Female hormone profile, £156.
What they cannot do alone
Worth knowing before you book.
Symptoms
What brings people in
Irregular or absent periods
The commonest single reason, and the one most often put down to stress for years.
Excess hair growth
On the face, chest or abdomen. Distressing, rarely discussed properly, and a recognised clinical sign.
Acne that will not clear
Particularly adult acne along the jawline that has not responded to the usual things.
Thinning hair
Male-pattern thinning at the temples or crown, which is the other side of the same hormonal picture.
Difficulty conceiving
PCOS is a leading cause, and identifying it changes what happens next.
Weight that behaves oddly
Gaining easily, losing with great difficulty, particularly around the middle.
PCOS is manageable, and identifying it matters beyond periods and skin, because it carries longer-term implications for diabetes risk and fertility that are worth knowing about early rather than late.
Questions
Things people ask us
Can a blood test diagnose PCOS?
Not on its own. Diagnosis normally needs a combination of things: your symptom pattern, blood results, and usually an ultrasound. Blood tests are the sensible first step because they can confirm the hormonal picture and rule out thyroid problems, which produce a very similar set of symptoms. We do the bloods and the consultation here and refer for the scan.
Which day of my cycle should I come in?
It depends which hormones are being tested, as several are measured in the first few days of a cycle. If your periods are irregular, which is common with PCOS, the timing is worked out differently and we will sort that with you when you book rather than leaving you to guess.
I have been told it is just my weight
Weight and PCOS interact in both directions, and being told to lose weight without anyone establishing what is driving the difficulty is a frustrating place to be. Testing tells you what is actually happening hormonally, which is a more useful starting point than being sent away.
What about excess hair growth on its own?
Worth investigating. Hirsutism has several possible causes and PCOS is the commonest, but not the only one. The same hormone profile covers it, and the consultation is where we work out whether anything else needs excluding.
Find out what is actually going on
Hormone testing, and time to go through it properly.