Thyroid palpation for dummies (for me I mean)

[Justiina]

How it is supposed to be done properly? I feel that no doctor does it properly according to some information I can find from online, but it is hard to separate which is right way to do it.

I found couple of videos for example this youtube.com/watch?v=AlJBvbR...(Not working as expected?) but no doctor has ever done it this way. I feel they have only checked the area under and behind ears.

I cannot say whether my thyroid gland feels weird for me since it was so long ago when I started to feel ill, but I have had that feeling of chocking pretty bad in the beginning with difficulties to swallow. Right side of my neck always feels weird, sometimes when I touch it around where I think the thyroid gland is, it hurts and I might feel pain for sometime. Sometimes it is pain, sometimes it is stinging, like something sharp would hit my neck.

So should it be done the way it is done in the video?

[cc120]

Is your neck and /or face swollen/puffy? Sometimes this happens so gradually that you forget how your face was before, and also can put it down to the aging process. After I started NDT my face and neck became slimmer.

[Justiina in reply to cc120]

My face was swollen and puffy until I was 23. I started to feel ill when I was around 16 or so. I was teased about having super big head. Also from pictures I can see how puffy eyes I have and at some point I turned grey on my face.

At 23 when I sort of collapsed and started to feel weak and really sick, the puffiness went away because of rapid weight loss. I was about 47 kilos. I still do have puffiness under my eye, sometimes it is so swollen that it hurts because of the pressure. Eye does not hurt, but the area around cheek bone does.

I cannot say about my neck, I don't know how it is supposed to be. It feels uncomfortable and has felt that way for years, like tight scarf around it all the time. I am 36 now and still skinny hard to put up weight, it is so hard to say what is different or abnormal since I have felt miserable for so long

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

What diagnosis have you had Justina?

What tests?

[Justiina in reply to cc120]

According to doctors I am perfectly healthy...

I was low and B12, but otherwise they say I should be happy.

I did do complete thyroid panel last fall and I had high thyroglobulin, really deficient to iodine and low selenium. Doctors ignore it.

Been supplementing B12, some iodine, and selenium + other vitamins and nutrients. Still feeling ill.

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

If you have high thyroglobulin, doesn't that mean that you have antibodies, and therefore Hashimotos? I'm not very knowledgeable, so I hope others contribute.

I think it would be worth you starting a new post stating your symptoms and posting all blood test results for advice.

My GP made me feel I was wasting her time with my fatigue symptoms, though my TSH was over 7 for approx 5 years. Had to start self medicating, was finally referred to endo who wasn't very helpful, and now waiting to see another in August. It wasn't until I posted symptoms and blood test results that I was advised on here that I was definitely hypothyroid and the medication has helped.

Have you had the following tests, post up results of all that you have had, and try to get tested for as many others as you can:

1.Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies (TPOAb)

2.Thyroglobulin Antibodies (TgAb)

3.TSH

4.FT4

5.FT3

6.B12

7.Folate

8.Iron

9.Ferritin

10.Vitamin D3

11.Calcium

12.Magnesium

13.Zinc

14.basic pituitary hormone function tests.

[Justiina in reply to cc120]

I have had some of those tests. Tsh and ft3 fluctuating a bit. But in range of course.

Folate and b12 tested. B12 low and Folate high-ish.

But there it ends. Doctors see no reason to test ferritin , antibodies and so on.

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

Could high folate low b12 be mark of infection, etc, as high ferritin, low iron indicates. Have you had ESR test?

[Justiina in reply to cc120]

Everything else was tested and was just perfect. Only eosinophil % was out of range as it was 9% range 1-6%. But since everything else was fine it was considered just allergy.

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

When you say in range with TSH etc, it's important to be higher in range, as if low in range could still be a problem.

[Justiina in reply to cc120]

Yeah. For example the t4 17 range 10-21 and t3 5.9 range 3.5-6.5

tsh 2.2 range 0.3-4.5.

Those are from January, no antibodies tested.

Thyroid panel Oct 2014

T4 1.6 range 0.7 - 2.5. Tsh 1.8 range 0.5-3.0. T3 3.0

Thyroglobulin 130.4 range 3-40.

I was only taking complex B between these tests , nothing else.

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

emedicine.medscape.com/arti...

'Increased thyroglobulin levels are found in the following conditions:

Untreated and metastatic differentiated thyroid cancers ( papillary and follicular; not medullary or anaplastic or other rarer types)

Metastases after initial treatment

Hyperthyroidism; this is not always correlated with increased thyroxine

Subacute thyroiditis

Some cases of benign adenoma'

Why hasn't this been investigated?

[Justiina in reply to cc120]

Doctors keep saying that thyroglobulin can be high without any reason.

Tho the paper from laboratory advises that it should be evaluated as it can be a sign of Hashi, graves , goitre or cancer.

The paper from laboratory was 4 pages explaining how thyroid gland works. Explaining everything. I guess that is why they skip it. It is not taught at medical school that way.

I am fighting to get them to take it seriously since I am symptomatic.

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

Perhaps it might help to post a new question on here to hear of others experience who have high thyroglobulin ?

[cc120 in reply to Justiina]

Selenium supplementation in patients with autoimmune thyroiditis decreases thyroid peroxidase antibodies concentrations.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/119...