Why does your bloating change with your cycle, and can a DUTCH test tell you?
Bloating that arrives on a schedule is usually responding to something else that runs on a schedule, and your hormones are the most common candidate. The DUTCH test is an at-home dried urine panel that shows how your stress hormones and sex hormones are actually behaving across a full day, which is the part standard blood work rarely captures. You collect the samples at home and we read the results together, so you stop guessing at your bloating and start working from real information about your body.
- At-home dried urine collection kit, delivered to your door
- A full read of your daily cortisol pattern and sex hormones
- A 45-minute Results and Recommendations consultation
- A written plan of the healing opportunities your results point to
What is the DUTCH test?
The DUTCH test is a dried urine hormone panel you collect at home over a single day. It measures your stress hormones and your sex hormones, plus the metabolites your body produces after it has used them, which is what turns a set of numbers into a picture of how your body is actually running.
Blood work usually captures one hormone at one moment. This captures a pattern across a whole day, and it does it without a needle or a trip to a lab.
Why does your bloating change depending on the week?
Bloating that comes and goes on a pattern is usually responding to something your body is doing on a schedule, and hormones run on a schedule. Cortisol rises and falls across the day. Estrogen and progesterone rise and fall across the month. Both influence how fast food moves through you, how much water you hold, and how your gut lining behaves under pressure.
That is why a woman can eat the same lunch two weeks apart and be comfortable once and unbuttoning her waistband the other time. It is also why a food diary rarely explains it. The pattern is upstream of the plate.
The DUTCH test looks at that upstream picture. It does not diagnose anything and it does not hand you a single tidy cause. It shows where your body is struggling to function well, so the next step you take is based on your own data rather than on the protocol that worked for someone else.
What does the DUTCH test actually measure?
It measures five things standard bloodwork either misses or only catches at a single moment in time.
Your daily stress pattern
Free cortisol and cortisone measured at four points across the day, so you see the shape of your stress response rather than one snapshot. This is the marker most often tied to afternoon bloating.
Total stress hormone output
Metabolized cortisol shows how much your body is producing overall, which can read very differently from the free cortisol pattern. Together they tell a story neither one tells alone.
Estrogen and progesterone
Levels plus the pathways your body uses to clear estrogen afterwards. Clearance matters for bloating, and it is the part almost nobody tests.
Androgens and DHEA
Testosterone, DHEA, and their metabolites, which sit alongside your stress hormones and often move with them when a demanding season has gone on too long.
Sleep and nutrient markers
Melatonin, B vitamin markers, and markers of oxidative stress, which show how well your body is resourced to do the repair work any real change depends on.
What it is not
This is one lab, not a diagnosis. It shows healing opportunities, meaning the places your body is asking for support. What you do with them is decided together on your consultation.
How do you take the DUTCH test?
You collect everything at home. No lab visit, no needles, no time off your calendar.
Order your kit
Your collection kit ships to your door with simple instructions and a prepaid return envelope.
Collect at home
Four small dried urine samples across one day, on the day that suits your schedule and your cycle.
Results come back
The lab processes your samples and your results are usually ready within about two to three weeks.
We read them together
A 45-minute consultation where you see what your results point to and leave with a written plan.
Who is the DUTCH test for?
It suits women whose bloating follows a pattern. It is not the right first lab for everyone.
This is a good next step if
- Your bloating changes across the month rather than staying constant
- You feel like things aren't improving despite your best attempts to eat and supplement well
- You are in your 40s and your body has stopped responding the way it used to
Start somewhere else if
- You have never run a gut test and your bloating is constant rather than cyclical, in which case the Good Gut Analysis is the better first lab
- You want more than one lab run together, which is what the Gutsy Foundation is built for
- You are not sure which lab answers your question, in which case book the $100 Initial Consultation first
“It sounds cheesy, but it really was life-changing.I began working with Raewyn while living in London. After a year of not feeling well in terms of energy and mood, I went looking for help with my anxiety, gut and hormone imbalances. Very quickly, once I’d completed the lab work and learned how to eat for me, I began feeling better.”Krystal, international aid worker
DUTCH test questions, answered
The person reading your results
I know what it is like to run a full calendar while your body is doing something you cannot explain, and to be told repeatedly that everything looks fine. Functional lab work is what finally gave me real information about my own body, and it is what I have used with more than 300 women since.
Your results are not handed to you as a PDF to interpret alone. We read them together, in the context of your actual life, and you leave knowing what your body is asking for and what to do first.
Ready to see what your hormones are doing to your bloating?
Order your DUTCH test and collect at home this week, or start with a call if you would rather decide which lab answers your question first.