My morning cortisol test got ruined by a dog bark

Last Tuesday I woke up at 6:30am for my saliva cortisol test, the one where you have to collect samples at specific times. I was fine until my neighbor's dog started barking nonstop for about 15 minutes right before my 8am sample. I felt my heart race and got instantly tense, but I collected anyway. The lab results came back with my morning cortisol way higher than my last test 6 months ago, and my doctor asked if anything stressful happened that morning. Has anyone else had a random event mess up their hormone test results, or is it just me?

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claire_campbell2mo ago

Did your doctor mention the barking dog thing at all? My friend had a similar issue with a 24 hour urine test, a car backfired outside her window right at the collection time and her numbers came back all over the place... she re-did the whole thing a week later and it was totally normal.

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valgibson2mo ago

Three separate times this month I've seen test results get thrown off by totally random stuff like that. My neighbor had to redo a fasting blood draw because a fire truck went screaming past her house and her blood pressure spiked right before the needle went in. It's like the universe just loves to mess with medical data at the WORST possible moment. Makes you wonder how many diagnoses out there are based on a bad Tuesday.

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