TSH alone is never enough testing for thyroid health. Read my proof.

I will say this 1 million times. TSH is thyroid stimulating hormone. It is only a signal. Your body does not use this for energy

If your doctor insist this is enough testing for thyroid Health, your doctor Is clueless on the subject.

Today I just explained how the thyroid TSH T4 and T3 work ;…to a new doctor. She disagreed, even though she was wrong. My test results prove that testing only TSH is not enough. She will have to eat her own words.

Thyroid issues are caused by many unknown reasons of inflammation. When this happens, it affects other things as well. The pituitary tells the thyroid what to do with the TSH signal. It’s not too uncommon for the pituitary to not work correctly, even though it may appear via imaging to be healthy.

The thyroid gland makes five different thyroid hormones, but we measure the two most common ones, T4 and T3. These need to be checked every time your checking your thyroid health.

After years of observing other peoples thyroid concerns on other forums, I have noticed something. The longer somebody is replacement thyroid hormone the more likelihood that TSH will continue to drop even while trying to maintain a similar level of T4 and free T3. Why this is I don’t know. I have mentioned this to a few younger doctors of which some listened, and some looked at me like I was crazy. ( but I was correct).

Right now, if someone just looked at my TSH they would think I’m getting near the bottom of the safe zone and almost hyper at 1.2.

However, I am actually hypo.

My T4 is .87, the range is (.93 - 1.7)

She did not test free T3, but used the old total T3 instead :

My T3 total is 89 and the range is 85-200.

Right now I am functioning on a little T3.

I am quite surprised that I am able to function as well as I do.

I’ve had this happen before and had my pituitary gland checked with both lab testing and imaging.

If your pituitary goes nuts, this is what happens.

Some people have a Pituitary that works sometimes and sometimes not so good (Without tumors ) reason why? not so clear.

Last time this corrected on its own.

If I add more T4 and T3, my body will like it, but then it will make the TSH look hyper, which will confuse average doctors.

This is why I have not been sleeping well and getting hot flashes , hot sweats and cold sweats.

Really hoping I don’t have a pituitary tumor. I guess it’s CT scan or MRI time again.

I can second the suppressed TSH after being on thyroid hormone for several decades. For the past several years, mine has been insanely low- 0.06 on average. Since T4 remains consistently within range doctor finally listened to me at this last appt and left dosage alone.

Thanks for posting this topic again- it is an important one for Hashi sufferers.

RainyCloud said...

astroman said...
Really hoping I don’t have a pituitary tumor. I guess it’s CT scan or MRI time again.

I hope you don't have a pituitary tumor either astro. I have one myself and even though they think it's not cancerous it blocks several hormones that I need to manage, it gets old really fast.

Geez Rainy! A pituitary tumor, that’s a major bummer. How exactly do you manage this or did you find a doctor that somewhat understands ….but not completely?

Thank you for asking astro! Sounds like you definitely understand how these hormone-related doctors just never quite fully get it. It's been kind of an uphill battle, especially due to financial issues at the time that I was diagnosed and other problems along the way.

Thankfully a very kind neurosurgeon looked at my MRI's for free (God bless him) and told me that it's too small for surgery. So that was a HUGE relief, because the place where I got my MRI just told me that I had a tumor, without much information (in their defense that's probably not their job), so I didn't know how bad it was in the slightest up until the neurosurgeon looked at it.

After that I went to an endocrinologist (well several actually, I know that you very well know the drill here, haha), and have just been managing my hormones from there. I tried to pay attention closely to what they measure and how and now I don't see anyone and just manage it myself.

Ideally I'd be getting another MRI scan one day to see if it's growing but that's another story. Thank you again for asking!

Hey astroman!

You can ask me anything!

It's a combination of both. I used to get my thyroid hormone online myself at the usual places (sites such as alldaychemist), and to a certain extend I still do. But my GP agreed to take over (for just the script) a few years ago. As you are familiar with though, it wasn't quite right in terms of dosage, so I still order 25mcg of T4 online myself.

I've always been towards the lower end of TSH but always had normal T3 and T4. Makes no sense and was supposed borderline hyperthyroidism. Doctor said lyme, bart, virus flu and stress can mess with thyroid and I strongly agree.

For people who take a little more thyroid medicine than what the doctor wants them to, they just have to remember to take a little less and be consistent with it before they take their blood test. Also need to be consistent with the time of day they do the thyroid blood draw

I kind of need to take less on pig thyroid because the T3 will always be higher than what doctors are comfortable with. But since T3 is only active for about 10 hours, I only take half of my thyroid the day prior to getting my lab test in the morning.

For those that want to hide their optimal levels from the doctor Taking additional T4 without the doctor, knowing, this would be kind of difficult to do since T4 stays Active in you for quite a long time.

The fact that they don’t understand optimal websites there’s websites all over about it, just blows my mind.

I can barely do my job correctly when I’m not Thyroid optimal. Word recall is difficult. I can’t make complicated decisions / calculations, and I just feel lightheaded in general.

Medical nerd- Nine Thyroid Nodules? That’s bad.

I had one nodule for 15 years and it dissolved six months after I (edit ) went one-hundred percent gluten-free. Also one Previously elevated thyroid antibody normalized.

And what did my thyroid doctor say about that? Oh must’ve been a coincidence. No I don’t think so.

Unfortunately, today’s doctors are so 100% evidence based that they do not know how to figure out puzzles.

What we think is evidence based they don’t agree with because its not repeated 1000 times and documented on a piece of paper.

Post Edited (astroman) : 5/11/2024 8:06:17 PM (GMT-8)

in case its of interest to those that are either know they are struggling with thyroid issues - or have been told their levels are "Normal" but are still struggling - here are what one of the top thyroid doctors say is optimal for healthy persons - vs "normal range" which includes people who are sick in the sample

VIEW IMAGE

Garzie, is this one of the Internet, thyroid guru doctors? Seems like Dr. Weston, despite the fact that he’s young guy seems to be leading the pack nowadays.

Unfortunately, doctors in physical clinics don’t seem to care much about this optimal thyroid level and they still go by anything within the range. There is very few other things in life that we treat ranges like this.

That’s when I learned to not even take the full amount of T3 the day before the test, so that at least the test is falsely suppressed more than when it actually is.

I’ve also played the game of “Oops I accidentally dropped the whole pill bottle into the toilet, so I need more”. When in fact that was a 100% lie just so I’d have more thyroid medicine sitting around to elevate my dose. that’s another advantage of pig thyroid is the sizes are basically like building blocks, adding and subtracting to get to your daily and weekly dose. That’s something you cannot do with synthetic thyroid medicine that comes in one pill of a certain size.