attractive, though.

Right, but do you think about the treatment of those patients? So we're not testing to diagnose.

That's not what we're doing.

So ACOG says you don't need to, ACOG and the menopausal society, so you don't need to test to diagnose.

That's true.

I'm agreeing with that.

You do not need to test to diagnose.

So go ahead.

What's the value and the purpose of a serum AM cortisol? And what else can you test in serum? And how is that different as far as what it tells you compared to a four-point test? one, a four-point cortisol, but then I think getting out of serum and moving into urine or moving into saliva, how is that different or what value does that add to the picture?

So when we talk about what's available for serum, we have an 8 a.m. value where the lab will tell you you have to be there between 8 and 9 a.m. Now, if you tell me we have to check cortisol within one hour or at one hour, whichever you prefer, 8 a.m. doesn't always fall into that window, right? People are getting up at 6.

They're going, they're doing all this and they're getting ready.

And so that's not really a one hour, number one.

Number two, the patient I saw, I ordered it.

She went at 9.49, right? And her a.m.

cortisol was 7.4.

Can you talk a little bit about what use is that what you see also and what type of testing should be considered?

50% new ones.

Yeah, and that's great because I think I've even talked to a couple people who feel very overwhelmed because it's completely contrary to what we've been taught.

And when you get to be, you know, and you're in practice 10 years, you forget about the learning and the pathways and everything.

And it's kind of like coming back in and going like, oh my gosh, I got to learn all this.

It's a little bit overwhelming, right? I remember when I had to reteach myself all the physiology, right? And so unless you're passionate about either helping a certain patient or you have a personal experience that you need to find answers or a family member, who wants to spend the time? You know? Who wants to help the patient? Well, that's the

Because once you take care of yourself and you realize that there are a lot of better ways of doing it than what you've been indoctrinated into believing, and you start doing the research and you start seeing that there are better ways to do it, I think you actually start putting your toe in the water and bringing your patients on board.

Yeah, and I think you bring up a good point.

It's not always about just giving a prescription, right? It's about teaching them just what you said in your lecture about telling them about stress, telling them about diet and lifestyle, telling them all of those baselines, basics, that as traditionally trained doctors we forget about, right? Because we don't have the nutrition education.

And we

never went out to eat.

I mean, I know we were like, you know, middle class family.

We had a huge garden.

We cooked every meal.

And then, you know, for a special occasion, we'd go out to eat, you know.

Yeah.

But I think there's some better tools and can you go down that pathway a little bit of, The person that comes into your office that's relatively healthy, not having issues, but just wants to know more things and then transition around to young women that come into your office that are having issues and the different pathways you might go down to get to an actual diagnosis and root cause rather than just band-aiding.