Can stress/anxiety drop your tsh

[Impalpable]

Hi everyone

I'm curious if anyone has ever heard of any studies into nerves/stress/anxiety causing your tsh to drop?

I'm so terrified everytime they take my bloods, incase they come out unusual that I wonder if that could have any effect on the results? I get really anxious around Doctors.

[humanbean]

Being under stress might cause your cortisol levels to rise. High cortisol is known to suppress TSH. So there could be a connection.

But!

People with thyroid problems often have low cortisol, so the connection may not exist. Since low and high cortisol have some symptoms in common, It isn't possible to guess which you have, you would need to test.

Also, even if you were terrified of the doctor and were under unusual stress for a couple of hours before seeing them, I have no idea whether TSH would respond that quickly to unusually high levels of cortisol. Somehow I doubt it, but I'm saying that on the basis of zero evidence.

[Impalpable in reply to humanbean]

Aw okay, what you are saying does make a lot of sense! Worth asking I thought.

[humanbean]

Is your TSH lower than you think it should be based on your other thyroid results and/or your symptoms?

Cortisol isn't the only thing affecting TSH, there are lots of things. Could you give us some more info? Perhaps you have secondary or tertiary hypothyroidism (for example). But we'd need more info before we could seriously suggest it.

[Impalpable in reply to humanbean]

I've had some tests come back strangely

On 100mcg of levo:

Jan 2016 tsh 8.8, t4 6.2 and no t3 results.

On 125 mcg of levo:

Mar 2016 tsh 0.16, t4 6.5 and my t3 3.3 (NHS ranges)

A week later it was:

tsh 0.01, t4 11.6 (range 10 - 23) and my t3 3.6 (range 3 - 6)

I then did a trh test, so I was off meds for 3 weeks and a few days before the test in the morning my results were:

tsh 9.82, t4 9 (range 10 - 23) and my t3 3.2 (range 3 - 6)

Then two days later in the evening (around 5.30 - 6pm) when they did the trh test (they inject you with something to stimulate the pituitary gland) my results started at:

tsh 3.5, t4 10.6 (range 10 - 23)

After 30mins

tsh 39, t4 doesn't change

After 1 hour

tsh 27

Which the endo says rules out any possibility of secondary hypothyroidism

If anyone can make any sense of it that would be wonderful.