Can anyone point me toward the Polish t3/t4 calculator pls?

[puncturedbicycle]

Someone posted it here about a week ago and the search facility isn't helping. (Is it just me or is it weird that the search results aren't in chronological order?) I've googled it up down and sideways and can't find it. TIA.

[Jose651]

Hi puncturedbicycle,

It was ziel who posted T3/T4 Calculator 5 days ago.

You can type her name, after clicking on the little magnifying glass, and her photo/name will come up. Click on that and the post will appear.

Hope this helps 😊

J 🍀

[Silver_Fairy]

chorobytarczycy.eu/kalkulator

[Mordillo in reply to Silver_Fairy]

Hello,

I am a newbie and trying to learn. Could you please explain to me the use / relevance of the calculator?

Cheers X

[puncturedbicycle in reply to Mordillo]

I would if I understood it entirely myself.

Did you read the thread above? You might get an idea of what's going on there.

For my purposes, I used it because when you get your blood test results the ranges aren't numbered from 1-10, they start and end at what looks like a random number (.034, 7.5) and if you have the full results of hormones that labs test (t3, t4, tsh) you might struggle to understand where you are on the spectrum of the results. We say here that to feel well some people need to have their tsh under 1 (so that's easy, you're looking for any result under 1) and t3/t4 in the top quarter of the range. So how do you know what the top quarter is if the range is .03 - 1.27 or similar?

I also take two thyroid meds and when my results come back a bit meh - t3 and t4 in the middle of the range or lower - it can be tricky to figure out which needs raising.

The calculator tells you where you are in the specific lab range that your lab provides and from that result you may understand more clearly which hormone is a bit high or low and which might benefit from a change in dose.

I have no doubt that there are others here who understand and can explain it better so if I've made a hash of it perhaps they will correct me.

[humanbean in reply to Mordillo]

Here are a few results of mine from iron testing :

UIBC - Unsaturated Iron Binding Capacity umol/L (20 - 62) 31

Iron umol/L (6 - 34.5) 15

TIBC – Total Iron Binding Capacity umol/L (45 - 70) 46

Transferrin Saturation % (15 - 45) 32.6

Ferritin ug/L (13 - 150) 81.6

Trying to work out how good, average, or bad these results are can be very difficult because the ranges are all different, sizes of the numbers are all different.

It is much easier to work out what is going on if you know how far through the range a value is as a percentage of the range.

So, I could change the display of my results and make them look a lot simpler and easier to understand.

UIBC - Unsaturated Iron Binding Capacity 26

Iron 32

TIBC – Total Iron Binding Capacity 4

Transferrin Saturation 59

Ferritin 50

So, the above results are telling me that my UIBC is 26% of the way through the range, my serum iron is 32% of the way through the range, my TIBC is 4% of the way through the range and so on. The ranges, the units, the actual results are irrelevant in this form of keeping results.

I find the percentages far easier to take in than the individual numbers and ranges. And it also becomes irrelevant if ranges change. Your can still use the percentage method to compare two results with different ranges.

For example, (using imaginary numbers) if I have a Free T4 level of 15 with a range of 10 - 20, (percentage through the range = 50%) and a later test my level is 15 with a range of 12 - 22 (percentage through the range = 30%), then by using percentages I can immediately see that the second result is actually worse than the first result, and I don't even have to know (or care) that the ranges have changed.

[puncturedbicycle in reply to humanbean]

An excellent point about how the calculator can standardise your results regardless of any change in range.