I tried the at-home health tests from SharkTank, Everlywell: A Women’s Health Kit Review

This post is sponsored by Everlywell but this is my honest review.

Now I surprisingly did not hear about Everlywell from Shark Tank, although I do love the show, it started coming across my Instagram. I kept thinking to myself how neat it sounded to be able to test items in the comfort of your own home. I’ve always wanted to do a DNA test just for the kick of it but never could rationalize the price. Instead, I was intrigued by Everlywell because it would show me real health data that I could use to talk to my doctor about. Plus your HSA or FSA might cover the cost!

Now, this might come as a shocker, but even though I work in healthcare I have not had a true physical from a doctor in probably 2 years. At the age of 25, I’ve also never had a full blood panel work up. Sure my job monitors my A1C and LDH to be eligible for an employee health insurance discount. And since I just moved States, I have to wait almost 6 months just to be established with a provider here. Let’s just say I have a laundry list of items to discuss.

Now I am not trying to get pregnant (I need a man first), but since stopping my birth control I have been experiencing some PMS symptoms, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. I thought the women’s health test would be a perfect way to start to see how badly I might have destroyed my hormones from almost 10 years of birth control.
   

How does the test process work?

Everlywell’s at home kits were super simple and easy to follow. They do a great job of sending you a step-by-step guide, links to video tutorials, and have amazing customer service. (After my first blood collection, I sent an email to make sure it would be acceptable and they answered within an hour!) They truly thought of including everything you might need.

Once you receive your kit, you want to make sure that you register it online so that you can receive updates throughout the process. I signed up to receive text messages as well and was alerted when they received my samples and when my results were ready.

For the women’s health kit, you have to collect to separate blood samples and 4 saliva samples at two different times in your cycle. Luckily for me, I already track my cycle on Apple's health app so I could easily decipher my days. But if you are thinking about the kit, I would take into consideration your cycle and that you may have to wait a little while before you can collect. 

My first collection was on day 3 or 4 of your cycle and was a simple blood sample. I made a series of Instagram stories during my collection. The collection was straightforward, but I was having a hard time with my blood dropping into the circles. It ended up being okay and I learned how I could improve for my second collection.

The second collection is on day 19-21 of your menstrual cycle. This one is more detailed and so I waited for the weekend to collect. For this collection, you are taking another blood sample as well as four saliva samples (one in the morning, before lunch, before dinner, and before bed). By the end of the day, my mouth felt so dry. As I am writing this post I realize that my results are probably wrong because I did not keep my saliva samples in the freezer until I was ready to ship. I kept reading the paper that was included in my kit and it had no mention of how to store. (sort of bummed about this)

Once you are finished you package your samples up in their biohazard bags and ship it back with the included pre-paid label.

The results

My results took 4-5 days to get back to me, which I think is pretty quick. The results are viewed online through their portal, but you are able to download a PDF so that you can discuss with a healthcare provider. The women’s health kit measures 11 different hormones: cortisol, estradiol, progesterone/estradiol ration, DHEAS, FSH, Free T3, Free T4, LH, Progesterone, TPO antibodies, TSH, and total testosterone.

Here is what my results overview looked like:

The blue/green color means that it is within a normal range, yellow/orange is low, and red is high. If you click on each section, Everlywell provides a definition as well as some basic ways to make hormone changes. Most of the recommendations had something to do with diet and limiting stress. (Pretty basic, right?)

Honestly, I was kind of shocked to see so many normal markers. But since I have now learned I collected my saliva samples wrong, I may ask my healthcare provider in May to run a few tests. I have however tried to improve my diet and work on incorporating certain foods to help improve my Pg/E2 ratio.

Although I am unsure if I ruined my results, I would love to take another test from Everlywell because I think they did a really good job at providing at home kits. I have my eye on the food sensitivity one! I have been getting these really weird hives throughout the day, but do not see a doctor until May.

If you would like to try out any Everlywell health test, Take 15% Off All Orders with code MNM15 at EverlyWell.com