Thyroid test meaning

Hi halima,

Your tests are indicative of being severely hypERthyroid and not hypothyroid, this is because your TSH is undetectable and your Free T4 is way above range, are you taking any thyroid medications like Levothyroxine ? if the answer is yes, then you need an immediate reduction in the dose since you are too much over medicated, you need to go to your PCP immediately, or alternatively, if you have an endo to call him/her when you read this and to tell them the results and to ask by how much to reduce!

In case you are not on Levo, then you are hyper for an other reason, your doctor is still need to see these results, you should ask him for three other tests, antiTPOab, TGab and TSIab, they are the thyroid antibodies that can cause hyper.

What symptoms do you have? do you have palpitations, chest pain, head aches? do you feel shaky? is it difficult for you to fall asleep ?

Best,

Hi joydot,

We need to see the reference ranges for the Free T3/4, the optimal TSH is a TSH of around 2.5, so yours is much lower, maybe even below range, but that is expected since you are taking a relatively high dose of T3 in addition to the T4.

How are you feeling with this combo? have you tried only T4 medications before adding T3? your Free T3 looks to be very high, I have no experience with T3/4 combo treratment so I am sorry for not having an answer whether you need to drop your dose, but as I said your TSH is extremely low.

What do you mean by "whole thyroid" ?
You should always try T4 medication like Levoxyl and Tirosint and only if that does not work for you then to try another brand that is available where you live, if you and your Endo are not able to reach balance of your TSH or it is well balanced and that you still do not feel well than you and your doctor can consider other options like NDT (natural desiccated thyroid) like Armour or Erfa, they are made from powdered porcine thyroid glands and contain both T3 and T4, the ratio of T3 to T4 in it differs from that in humans and it is what was prescribed before synthesizing the T4 in the laboratory, some people say that they do well on it, regarding adding some source of T3 to a T4 medication, my ex-Endo told me once that all the big studies show that it does not help.

Best of luck,

Post Edited (hypoHashimoto) : 9/4/2016 6:16:57 AM (GMT-6)

Hi joydot,

Well yes it does, as you can see your Free T3 is way above the normal reference range, together with the extremely low TSH obviously you are hyperthyroid.

My best guess is that either you were not on a suitable brand of synthetic T4 for you or that you were on such a one but not on the proper dose for you, since you have hashimoto's you need to retest for TSH each about three months after starting thyroid medication or changing the dose and to increase the dose according to the TSH until you reach the proper dose for you and your levels remain stable, this should be a process and each one of us with hashi have to go through it, there is no way to speed things up, if you try you will end up loosing more time and yes it can take months to years to reach the dose which you need, this final dose depends on your gender, weight and age and of course the severity of your disease.

The available brand name of T4 in Germany is Euthyrox which is manufactured by MerckSerono, it is not approved by the American FDA, they also have some locally made generics of Levo.

My best recommendation for you would be to search for a good Endocrinologist who understands thyroid, you can search for one who works in a big hospital, you can also send them e-mails and question them before setting an appointment, currently you are over medicated and you need to get help from a specialist, some people who are hyper find that their TSH is undetectable, yours is still above 0.0001, but as I said it is very low and if left this way for a long period of time it will be dangerous .

Best of luck,

Post Edited (hypoHashimoto) : 9/4/2016 10:44:56 PM (GMT-6)