Please help re my sons results

[tasha54321]

Hi everyone. My son (age 14) who has thyroid symptoms (i have hashis amongst other health problems) i had tested with genova and attached are his results. Can anyone help interpret these for me please? Feeling confused. Thanks in advance. Tasha x

[Clutter]

Tasha54321, Antibodies are negative for autoimmune disease (Hashimoto's) but the thyroid results are very unusual with high TSH, low-normal FT4 and high FT3.

Hyperthyroidism presents with low/suppressed TSH and elevated FT4 &/or elevated FT3 but high TSH rules out hyperthyroidism. Isolated T3 toxicosis presents with low-normal TSH and FT4.

academicjournals.org/articl...

I can only suggest you ask your GP to retest to rule out lab error, and if results are still abnormal to refer your son to endocrinology.

[tasha54321 in reply to Clutter]

Thank you for your reply. It was done privately through genova so i would have to pay over £100 again for them to re do it and obviously dont want to have to unnecessarily. Our gp will not retest and only does tsh when they do test. I was confused for the same reason you had put and hoped i was wrong to be 😞 do you think genova would help? Thanks

[Jazzw in reply to tasha54321]

Do you think your GP would acknowledge the Genova results? I think I'd start there - maybe with a different doctor at the practice if there is one.

What are your son's symptoms?

[Clutter in reply to tasha54321]

Tasha, It's worth asking them, I think, as the results are so odd. I also think you should show the results to your GP. There are exceptions to every rule, and this should be one of them.

[Jazzw]

Tasha

This is an unusual one. If it isn't a lab error, as Clutter suggests, then it might be resistance to thyroid hormone. yourhormones.info/endocrine...

Definitely needs some follow up - if your GP gets similar results with your son's blood tests a referral to an endocrinologist will be in order.

[tasha54321]

Thank you both. I have swapped to ndt myself , self medicating because my gp has no under standing of thyroids and all the gps there are useless. Ive been under a endo and seem them all and got no where been ill for 14 yrs because levo hasnt worked for me (i dont convert to t3 properly) and now have so many health problems im worried for jake because he is showing signs like i had. Constantly feeling unwell. Tired, migraines, nose bleeds, painful joints, brain fog, struggling more at school now has low moods and anxiety. Food problems. List goes on.

[Hidden in reply to tasha54321]

Oh tasha54321,

Your poor child. I feel for you both.

It is bad enough being a young teenager without all this going on for him.

As others have said above I think he definately needs this pursuing. If there is a problem and there sounds like there is, the sooner he is medicated, the better.

I just wanted to wish him well and sent heart felt support to you as well,

Flower007

[gabkad]

Tasha, call Genova and tell them the test results are odd. Ask them if there is any chance of a lab error and maybe they'll do the re-test for free.

It IS really a strange result.

[Eddie83]

This is a somewhat unusual case which should be taken to an endocrinologist. Not just any endo, but one who specializes in thyroid and autoimmunity.

I would interpret these tests as follows. The high TSH, and FT4 tending toward the bottom of normal means that something is keeping the thyroid from functioning optimally; the hypothalamus/pituitary wants more T4. The fact that TT4 is slightly above range middle and FT4 is below, would make me ask if production of TBG is normal; how do his blood lipids look in general? Does he get enough healthy fats, as opposed to the crap used in fast-food restaurants? I imagine there must be specific tests for TBG and SHBG.

It is known that some bodies can compensate for low FT4, by producing more T3 than would be expected/normal. This is especially true in young people. I have come across young people on other boards who have FT3 over range top.

What bothers me most, though, is TPO antibodies. That fact that you have Hashi's, reinforces this feeling. Conventional lab wisdom is that the patient is "normal" if TPOAb is less than some threshold value, and that value from the lab I've used is 20. I can tell you that Kent Holtorf (HoltorfMed.com) considers all patients with TPOAb over 10 to be abnormal, i.e. to have Hashimoto's. The logic is this: with very high TPOAb, there will be rapid destruction of thyroid tissue. But with a low level of TPOAb, there will be a slow destruction of thyroid tissue, which can take decades to finally cause severe hypoT. Ideally you want TPOAb=0. I know from my own experience that I had TPOAb in the 20-30 range for decades, and once I got on a very clean diet, it did drop to zero - although there was significant thyroid destruction by that time.

The most common food culprits for autoimmunity are gluten and dairy. General environmental pollution is a black hole, what with plasticizers, perchlorates, etc. everywhere. Very few docs understand autoimmunity; I gather that is why you still have Hashi's. I think it is likely that your son is showing the beginning symptoms of gut dysbiosis, sometimes termed "leaky gut", or "enteropathy" (in allopathic medicine) when it gets really bad.

If you can't find or afford an environmental medicine specialist, I would remove gluten & dairy from his diet, give him a probiotic on a regular basis, then test his TPOAb in 6 months to see if it has decreased. Other options are to test for gluten sensitivity via GAb and TTG, or use the Genova test for leaky gut, esp. if he's in the "removal of pizza from my diet is a tragedy" camp.