Hormonal Health
Functional Medicine Gold Coast
wave functional health
Dr Matt le Roux
When your hormones feel off but your blood tests come back normal, the problem is not in your head. It is in what has not been tested yet.
At Wave Functional Health we look beyond a single hormone level to understand why your hormonal system is not performing well, what other systems are contributing to the imbalance, and what a structured plan to address it actually looks like.
Still Looking for Answers
Your Symptoms Are Real, Even When the Tests Say Otherwise
An important note. Functional medicine does not replace specialist care, prescribed medication, or medical monitoring. It can help identify modifiable factors that may influence inflammation, immune resilience, symptom burden, flare frequency, and quality of life - alongside your existing medical team.
You are exhausted in a way that sleep does not fix, your weight has shifted despite nothing changing in your diet, and your mood feels like it belongs to someone else. You may have been told your hormones are fine, given a referral to a specialist, or offered a prescription to manage symptoms.
What you have not been given is a clear explanation of why this is happening and a plan that actually addresses it.
Hormones do not operate in isolation. They are produced, transported, activated, and cleared through interconnected systems including the brain, the gut, the liver, the adrenal glands, and the thyroid. What presents as a hormone problem often originates in one of these systems — which is why treating the hormones directly without understanding the broader context so often produces partial or temporary results.
At Wave we start by mapping the full hormonal picture alongside the systems that regulate it, not by treating a single lab value in isolation.
Your hormones were checked.
But the full picture was not.
The Gap in Standard Care
Why Standard Hormone Testing Misses the Full Picture
Conventional hormone testing typically measures a narrow set of markers in serum, often at a single point in time. For women this usually means oestrogen and progesterone at one phase of the cycle, with normal ranges set wide enough to capture most of the population rather than reflect what is optimal for the individual. Thyroid assessment is frequently limited to TSH alone, which can appear normal while the conversion of T4 to active T3 is impaired. Cortisol is rarely assessed at all unless a formal adrenal disease is suspected.
What is also consistently missed in standard care is the way hormones interact with each other and with other systems. Oestrogen metabolism through the liver and gut, progesterone's relationship with thyroid receptor sensitivity, cortisol's suppressive effect on sex hormone production, and insulin's influence on oestrogen dominance are all relationships that determine how someone feels but are not part of a routine blood panel.
What We Look For
The Root Causes of Hormone Dysregulation
Hormones do not operate in isolation. They are produced, transported, activated, and cleared through interconnected systems that include the brain, the gut, the liver, the adrenal glands, and the thyroid. A disruption in any one of these areas creates downstream effects that can look like a hormone problem but actually originate somewhere else entirely. This is why treating the hormones directly without understanding the broader context so often produces partial or temporary results.
At Wave Functional Health, we look at the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and how chronic stress is suppressing sex hormone production. We assess liver detoxification pathways that determine how oestrogen is metabolised and cleared. We look at gut microbiome health because a subset of gut bacteria directly influences oestrogen recirculation through an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase. We assess nutrient status, sleep quality, insulin sensitivity, and thyroid function in full, because all of these feed into the hormonal picture.
For men, we look at testosterone production and conversion pathways, including aromatisation to oestrogen, which is commonly driven by adipose tissue, insulin resistance, or poor liver clearance. For women at any stage of life, we map the full hormonal landscape including cortisol patterns, sex hormone levels and their metabolites, and thyroid function to understand the relationship between these systems rather than treating each one in isolation.
Our Approach
How Wave investigates and addresses hormone dysfunction
We use DUTCH (Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones) testing as a core tool for hormone assessment. This gives us a far more detailed picture than a serum panel, including metabolites of oestrogen and cortisol that reveal how these hormones are being processed by the body.
Where thyroid dysfunction is suspected we run a full thyroid panel including TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and thyroid antibodies. Blood chemistry through OptimalDX provides insight into nutrient status, liver function, blood sugar regulation, and inflammatory markers that directly affect hormone balance.
Treatment integrates nutritional support for specific detoxification and hormone production pathways, targeted supplementation, lifestyle and sleep protocols, and where appropriate, referral to a GP experienced in bioidentical hormone therapy.
Our role is to build the clearest possible picture of what is driving your symptoms and to create a protocol that addresses those drivers directly.
Map hormones and their metabolites with DUTCH
DUTCH complete hormone testing gives us sex hormones, their metabolites, the full cortisol curve, and melatonin — revealing how hormones are being processed and cleared, not just how much is in circulation.
Assess thyroid conversion in full
TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and antibodies — because thyroid hormone directly influences oestrogen metabolism, progesterone receptor sensitivity, and how every other hormone functions.
Investigate gut and liver oestrogen clearance
GI MAP or MicrobiomiX assesses beta-glucuronidase activity and gut microbiome balance — a dysbiotic gut directly recirculates oestrogen rather than clearing it, driving oestrogen dominance patterns.
Assess blood sugar and insulin sensitivity
Insulin resistance is one of the most common and modifiable drivers of oestrogen dominance in women and testosterone suppression in men — frequently missed on standard hormone panels.
Identify nutrient insufficiencies
Magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, iodine, and selenium are critical for hormone synthesis and thyroid conversion. OptimalDX blood chemistry identifies deficiencies at functional rather than disease thresholds.
Build and monitor a targeted protocol
Treatment is built around the specific drivers found in your results — not a generic hormone support plan. Where hormone replacement therapy is indicated, we work collaboratively with a GP experienced in bioidentical prescribing.
Common Presentations
Hormonal symptoms vary depending on which hormones are involved, the phase of life, and which body systems are contributing to the imbalance. Many patients present with several of these symptoms simultaneously.
Symptoms Patients Commonly Present With
Advanced Diagnostics
← Scroll to see full table
| Test | What it reveals |
|---|---|
| DUTCH Complete | Comprehensive dried urine hormone panel including sex hormones and their metabolites, cortisol patterns across the full day and night, and melatonin — far more detailed than a single serum draw at one point in time |
| Full Thyroid Panel | TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and thyroid antibodies — identifies conversion problems and autoimmune thyroid activity that are missed by TSH alone and that directly influence every other hormone in the system |
| OptimalDX Blood Chemistry | Optimal range analysis of liver function, blood sugar regulation, inflammation, and key nutrients including iron, B12, vitamin D, and zinc that directly affect hormone production, clearance, and receptor sensitivity |
| Fasting Insulin and HbA1c | Insulin sensitivity markers revealing the degree to which blood sugar dysregulation is driving oestrogen dominance in women or testosterone suppression and aromatisation in men |
| GI MAP or MicrobiomiX | Gut microbiome assessment including beta-glucuronidase activity — an enzyme produced by specific gut bacteria that drives oestrogen reabsorption rather than clearance, directly contributing to oestrogen dominance patterns |
| Nutrient Panel | Identifies deficiencies in magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, iodine, and selenium — all critical for hormone synthesis, thyroid conversion, and the detoxification pathways through which hormones are cleared |
| Male hormone panel | Total and free testosterone, SHBG, oestradiol, DHEA, and cortisol patterns — identifies low free testosterone, elevated oestradiol, and metabolic drivers of hormonal decline in men that standard GP panels miss |
Testing we use to investigate SIBO
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Common drivers we investigate
Who This Is For
This approach may suit you if...
SIBO is worth investigating whenever the clinical picture involves chronic bloating, digestive symptoms that have not resolved with dietary changes, and a history of IBS diagnosis without meaningful improvement.
You do not need a confirmed SIBO diagnosis to begin an investigation. If the symptom pattern suggests bacterial overgrowth as a plausible explanation for what you are experiencing, that is sufficient reason to look more closely.
Frequently Asked Questions
What people ask about hormonal care at Wave
Standard reference ranges are set to capture 95 percent of the population, not to reflect what is optimal for function and wellbeing. A result can fall within the normal range and still represent a significant decline from what is ideal for you as an individual.
Additionally, standard panels often do not include hormone metabolites, assess hormones at the wrong time in the cycle, or evaluate the systems that regulate hormone production and clearance. Functional assessment asks a different and more detailed set of questions.
Oestrogen dominance describes a state where oestrogen is elevated relative to progesterone, or where oestrogen metabolism is impaired such that more stimulating forms accumulate. It can develop through poor liver clearance of oestrogen, disruption to the gut microbiome, chronic stress suppressing progesterone, insulin resistance, or exposure to environmental oestrogen-mimicking compounds.
It is common in perimenopause, in women after coming off hormonal contraception, and in men with metabolic dysfunction.
Yes, and this is one of the most consistently underappreciated drivers of hormone dysfunction. Cortisol and progesterone share a precursor called pregnenolone. Under chronic stress, the body prioritises cortisol production at the expense of sex hormone synthesis — sometimes called pregnenolone steal.
Elevated cortisol also suppresses thyroid conversion and increases insulin resistance, creating a cascade of hormonal disruption that no amount of hormone supplementation will fully correct if the stress physiology is not also addressed.
Dr Matt works with the functional and root-cause layer of hormone dysregulation — identifying what is driving the imbalance, supporting the systems that produce and clear hormones, and creating the conditions for the body to regulate itself as effectively as possible.
Where hormone replacement therapy is indicated, we can provide a referral to a GP experienced in bioidentical hormone prescribing, working collaboratively to ensure the broader clinical picture is understood and addressed alongside any prescribing.
In men we assess total and free testosterone, SHBG, oestradiol, DHEA, and cortisol patterns. Low free testosterone is often more clinically relevant than low total testosterone, and elevated oestradiol in men is a common and frequently missed driver of fatigue, low libido, and mood changes.
We also assess metabolic markers because insulin resistance and excess adipose tissue are among the most common drivers of testosterone decline and aromatisation in men — and the most modifiable when identified and addressed early.
Your hormones can be understood.
Your symptoms can be explained.
If you have been told your results are normal but nothing about how you feel is normal, it is time for a more thorough investigation. At Wave Functional Health, Dr Matt uses advanced hormone testing and functional medicine to identify the real drivers of your symptoms and build a protocol that addresses them directly.
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