Under active thyroid?

Hi

I have suspicions that I have an under active thyroid, due to being shattered all the time & not being able to lose weight no matter what I try. I do yoga twice a week, Pilates once a week & have a personal trainer 3 times a week who also keeps a check on my food & ive only lost 3lbs in 10 weeks!?

I'm 43 & the doctor put it down to the menopause as I get hot in in bed at night !?

However, she did agree I could have the thyroid blood tests, which she said were normal. However I have this niggling feeling that it's still my thyroid. I'd be really grateful if someone could give me their opinion as to what I do next please.

Not sure which test results are relevant so please let me know if there's others that may help...

Serum TSH level - 3 miu/L

Serum iron level - 20 umol/l

Serum transferrin level - 2.89 g/L

Serum TIBC level - 66 umol/L

Serum vitamin B12 level - 285ng/L

Serum folate level - 3.49ng/ml

Serum ferritin level - 42.4 ng/ml

Thank you so much x

[greygoose]

Well, the only one that relates directly to thyroid there is the TSH. And that's too high. Although you will never get a doctor to admit it's high until it goes well over range.

However, a one off test proves nothing, it could be a fluke. You should ask for them to be tested again in about six months time, to see if it's still that high. And, when you do get retested, you should ask for FT4 and FT3, because they are the actual thyroid hormones. TSH is a pituitary hormone.

On the other hand, your nutrients are much too low, from what I can see. But, if you post tests again, can you give the ranges, please, because otherwise, it's very difficult to interpret the results.

Your ferritin looks very low - it should be at least mid-range, but we don't know what the range is.

B12 is much too low in any range. Optimal for B12 is 1000, no matter what the range. Did your doctor say nothing about that? You should supplement that as soon as possible - don't bother asking your doctor to prescribe B12, she'll only give you the wrong one, and not enough of it. What you should get is sublingual methylcobalamin, 5000 mcg. Take one daily with a B complex to keep the Bs balanced. You need a B complex with methylfolate - not folic acid - because your folate is very low, too - you might even need to supplement that separately for a while, in addition to the rest. You can find all you need on Amazon, much better quality than you'll find in any shop.

Having low B12 and ferritin will cause a lot of symptoms, and make you feel very tired. And could even be causing your high TSH by affecting the way your body uses thyroid hormone. It would be a bad idea to start thyroid hormone treatment at the moment, anyway, with low nutrients like that.

Did you have your vit d tested? That could also be low. And how about the antibodies? TPOab.