TSH Test and Prednisone

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum. To give you a little background, I am a 24-year-old female with a strong family history of thyroid conditions, including Hashimoto's and Grave's.

In the past 2 months, I have been to the hospital 7 times. I've been suffering with difficulty breathing and swallowing, "lump in the throat", overall body pains, fatigue, weakness, insomnia, extreme weight loss, anxiety, depression, and pain in my lymph node and thyroid areas.

I had a thyroid ultrasound last week and we found 1 mini nodule (4 mm at the largest point) and half of my thyroid is slightly larger than the other half. Also, it is notable that during the ultrasound, I was in extreme pain.

I initially had a TSH and T4 test, while on 30 mg of prednisone a day. This was 1 day after receiving 2 shots of epinephrine, 1 shot of benadryl and 1 shot of prednisone at the ER.

I explained all of this to my new endocrinologist, and she thought that I have Hashimoto's. Despite this, she said "Well, I'll see you in 6 months".

I had a TSH, T4 and T3 test done with another doctor on Monday and am waiting for that to come in today. My endo drew blood for the full thyroid test which will take several days.

Someone please help me! I'm so tired of feeling sick and being out of work. Does it really take this long to diagnose thyroid issues?!

Thank you :)

Hi,

Many parts of the test are still pending, but I've received the following results:

T3 71 (Range: 76-181)
Free T4 1.2 (.8-1.8)
TSH .58 (.4-4.5)
Positive ANA

My prior TSH from 2 weeks ago was .8.

Thank you for the help!

Hi!

I did more thyroid testing with this endo and got the following results:

TSH 1.1 (range .3-4.7)
Free T4 1.3 (Range .8-1.6)
Thyroid Peroxidase Antibody 5.8 (Range < or = 20)
Thyroglobulin Antibody <.9 (Range <4)

After the first endocrinologist ditched me based on these results (days after the hyper results listed above), I saw another endo. He admitted that 15% of the time, patients can have Hashimoto's with no antibodies present. He felt my neck and acknowledged that there is obvious pain and inflammation. He asked me about sleeping and I explained to him that I cannot sleep on my back, otherwise it becomes difficult to breath. I tried sleeping on the right side (the side with the thyroid inflammation) and am in excruciating pain. It feels as if someone is pulling on the front of my throat.

I did a 4th thyroid test yesterday with this new endo for TSH, Free T3, Free T4, and Sed Rate.

Is it highly uncommon for doctors to dismiss patients with numbers like mine? I know that my TSH isn't extremely low, but the fact that I've been in bed for 7 weeks with every symptom of hyperthyroidism should carry some weight as well.

Hi,

Is there any danger in this? He performed multiple tests because I was on prednisone for the first, and both the second and third tests didn't include Free T3.

Thank you! My doctor has all of the test results. We believe that I may be constantly switching between hyper and hypo, multiple times in a day. The excessive testing may help diagnose Thyroid Storm.

On a side note, does thyroid cause your nails to fall out?