Frustrated mama

[Teachermama]

My 11 year old son has been dealing with migraines, random nausea, high resting pulse, fluctuating high BP, and most recently rapid weight gain (56 pounds in 5 months) and has not changed diet! Also insomnia has taken over. The Drs have checked heart, kidneys, and for Cushings- cortisol is normal and major organs are normal.

Blood work is all normal range except insulin is 59 (and rising- bc it was 33 a month ago), tsh is 1.04

TSH0.70 - 4.17 uIU/mL

Free T4is .08.

range of 0.9 - 1.4 ng/dL

The first endo dr told us it was puberty and nothing to worry about and our pediatrician even said "get a new dr"

We see a new dr Aug 18 but this is going on a full year of no diagnosis and worsening symptoms. Mind you, their focus was Cushings and a pheochromocytoma for many months....so now I'm thinking thyroid.

Any ideas? Thanks and God bless.

Stressed out Mama

[Teachermama]

Ps- was always in 90th % of weight and height but is athlete (well was- doesn't find much anything fun anymore)

He's not overeating nor drinking soda or indulging.

[shaws]

Welcome to our forum,

The first thing, with regard to blood test and the thyroid gland, is never to accept 'normal'. Most of us find that word causes us far more problems than the thyroid gland which has gone awry.

Throughout the world millions remain undiagnosed, despite clinical symptoms, because their blood tests are 'normal'.

If you can I would get private tests done to cover all aspects of the thyroid gland and there are some Labs on Thyroiduk.org.uk main website which I will link you to. First I will put the following:-

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_...

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_...

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin...

If you use Genova or Blue Horizon you put a Code and get a discount. Blue Horizon does pin-prick tests too.

If your GP hasn't done, Vitamin B12, Vit D, iron, ferritin and folate ask for these also. We are usually deficient particularly B12 (a hormone) and D (pro hormone) which can give us severe symptoms too.

When your son has a blood test for his thyroid hormones, it would be as early as possible and fast (he can drink water). The TSH is highest then as most doctors only take notice of it and not the clinical symptoms.

If he takes thyroid hormones, approx 24 hours should elapse between last dose and the blood test and take hormones after test. The reason is taking hormones before the blood test can skew the results

There must be millions of people in the world with a thyroid gland dysfunction but due to the modern method of diagnosing by blood tests alone instead of looking also at the clinical symptoms will never be diagnosed until very, very unwell and the TSH reaches 10.

I hope you get a diagnosis as you know your son is quite unwell which is a worry in itself when there's no diagnosis.

[shaws]

This is another link which gives details of a recently found gene fault which is self-explantory.

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin...

i.e. T3 is the active hormone required by the billions of receptor cells in our bodies, and the brain contains the most. We cannot function if we don't have sufficient T3 in our receptor cells.

[Teachermama in reply to shaws]

Thank you- already so insightful.

[elicarol]

I was diagnosed after 4 years of pure suffering tests ok blood ok everything they did was ok so I was told.I had s.een over 15 doctors and all major hospitals in Southern Calif USC,UCLA,LongBeach Memorial Hospital Good Samaritan plus more not one found anything. I was referred to a Homeopathy Dr. I was told I had 15 different illiness then it was all in my head until my Homeopathy did blood work for about 18 days 7 days a week at 10 am and he called me and husband in with results. I have pheochromocytoma mine adrenal tumor that produced hormones I was putn.a. on T P N total parental nutrition 9 months to prepare for surgery. they took my adrenal gland out and did good for 12 years .Once again going through major problems now told I have cushings. Saw a Dr today 59 years in practice and only knew of 3 cases in his time me being the 4th . I am very ill again and these Dr. just don't know what to do this is just my experience and not being treated for my new symptons sorry not much help just letting you know at one time I did get help

[Sasical in reply to elicarol]

Hello, can I ask if you were diagnosed with Pheochromocytoma just with blood tests or did you also need more invasive tests?