Saliva test for T3

I've never heard of this test. I assume you'd have to pay for this yourself? Newer technology often has no truly been well tested, so the reliability and usefulness can be questionable.  I wouldn't fork out the money. Unless you have unlimited funds to throw at the illness, running  a million tests on after the other is not an effective approach. If you had money or coverage for such tests, the most wffective way to run them is all at once, then again after a set time period to see whether they change. Unfortunately, the way we run tests is not efficient, as running one after the other at different times adds huge variation and unreliability when trying to look at results as a whole.

My experience with tests is that they're only as good as the technology and the interpretation, and most don't tell you what they're supposed to, or have a huge unreliable factor. (Antibody tests have a 50% false negative for example, all the thyroxin tests rely on ELIZA and other antibody testing methods, which frankly can be  very finicky). I've found testing in general to be less effective than clinical examination and observation of symptoms. The best use of tests being as a general guideline.  Besides the blood tests, an ultrasound is often fairly helpful, as it can tell you whether you have thyroid cysts, their size, and what sort of composition they are, as well, as comparison of growth over time.

You're better off spending the money on trial and error of treatments you can do on your own, alternative treatments, TCM, herbs, good quality food.

This website gives a good accounting of the pros and cons of thyroid blood tests and saliva tests. It doesn't go into detail on each type of test. It might help you understand the limitations of testing.

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