Comments on Blood Test Please

[Auntywoo]

Hello from Melbourne, Australia,

I am writing to ask, that the very informed and supportive members here, please look at my recent blood results and give me your take on them.

They were collected on 4/08/2016 and I saw my Endo ten days ago on 18/08/2016

I am currently on 100mgs Thyroxin three days a week. Taken at 5.30am two hours before I eat breakfast.

My Endo told me my results were good and said to continue as is ??

I read here frequently, that a lower TSH than I have, would be ideal............

S TSH 2.77 mU/L (O.5 - 6.0)

I know the scale/reference for this is different in other parts of the world. i.e (0.5 - 3.0)

S FT4 16.6 pmo1/L ( 11.0 - 22.0)

S FT3 4.6 pmo1/L (3.1 - 6.40)

S 250H Vit D 66 nmo1/L (50 - 250) It was only 40 on 19/10/15

My Endo wants it to be 100/150

I am on a large dose of 50,000IU once a week and 1,000IU every night.

Folate

S Active B12 94 pmo1/L (23 - 100)

S Total B12 358 pmo1/L (200 - 700)

S Ferritin 168 pmo1/L (30 - 500)

I will look forward with much interest on what replies arrive.

Many thanks with much appreciation

Wendy (Auntywoo)

[bluebug]

Vitamin D is too low as you already know.

Your serum B12 is too low it should be at or above the top of the range. So you need to supplement with methlycolbalamin. (Sorry auto correct put methlyfolate)

Your folate result is missing.

I need to check on the units on ferritin as your range is wider.

Here we do post TSH is better the nearer it is to 1 as generally that will lead to a higher T3. However I doubt your endo will raise your dosage of levo until your vitamin D is optimal as s/he will say any symptoms you have are due to inadequate vitamin D.

[Auntywoo in reply to bluebug]

Oops sorry! Thank you for getting back to me.

RBC Folate has not been tested since 28/01/2014

It was 2766 nmo1/L (>800) ???

On 12/03/2016

S Fol >45.00 nmo1/L (7.0) ???

What does this mean?

[bluebug in reply to Auntywoo]

Sometimes lab don't put in the range for a vitamin or mineral. They just state if your level is above or below a number.

Unfortunately when you are above a level this isn't helpful as it doesn't make it clear whether you have a problem or it is OK.

Are you supplementing B vitamins or folate?

[Auntywoo in reply to bluebug]

No I haven't been What should I take?

[bluebug in reply to Auntywoo]

gabkad below has listed what you should supplement in terms of B12.

As your folate is high I wouldn't supplement.

[Auntywoo in reply to bluebug]

Should have read

S Ferritin 168 ng/mL (30 - 50)

[gabkad]

Wendy, how do you feel? That's the main thing.

Your active B12 is excellent. You could take 1000 mcg B12 a couple of times per week to get the B12 up to above 500. Or eat a serving of liver once a week. That contains minerals and vitamins in one neat package. Clams and oysters are also high in B12 plus minerals.

Vitamin D3 has a half life of 60 days in the body. Taking 50,000 IU once a week for 4 weeks might put you over range. Is the doctor going to do a follow up on how well you absorb it? (Just to note: I did exactly that for one month and my blood level went above range. My endo was NOT impressed.) So I take 32,000 IU once per month right after I have a high fat meal and it keeps my level at 110. (i am not taking any during the summer because I'm outdoors.) Taking vitamin D3 on an empty stomach or taking it with a cup of coffee will not optimize absorption. It's a fat soluble vitamin.

Basically, if you boost your level to 100 and then take nothing and don't get out in the sun, your D level will be down to 50 after sixty days.

Sardines contain vitamin D3. Fish like cod contain vitamin D in their livers, but as with us, fish metabolize vitamin D in their skins. So if you eat lots of fatty fish (mackerel etc.) with the skin on, you'll get vitamin D that way as well.

[Auntywoo in reply to gabkad]

My Endo had me on 100,000IU of Vit D3 once a month and 2,000IU every night. for a couple of months not much change. The morning one, once a week, I take straight after I have eaten breakfast the night one after dinner. Not seeing Endo for another six months Will get my GP to order the tests talked about here in two months to check levels.

[gabkad in reply to Auntywoo]

Maybe switch the other way around. Take the higher dose with your supper or with a shot glass of really good olive oil. Optimize absorption.

[bluebug in reply to gabkad]

You actually need to be careful how much oily fish you eat due to the level of pollutants in it and the fact that if you eat loads you bleed more.

For these reasons they only recommend you only eat 2 portions of oily fish a week.

[gabkad in reply to bluebug]

bluebug, this applies to large fish like tuna, king mackerel, stuff like that. Fish that live on other fish are a problem. Small fish like sardines, smelt, brown croaker, yellow croaker, bream, etc. are okay. There's lots of smaller fish that are not threatened species available.

[bluebug in reply to gabkad]

Oddly enough I was actually watching an Australian documentary on microbeads a few days ago. All marine life absorb microbeads and it does not pass out of their bodies as originally thought. This is why I said pollutants not heavy metals as I was thinking of plastics.

Anyway the amount of fish you need to eat to get sufficient vitamin D is a hell of a lot - there are tables of how much vitamin D food sources contain and it's very little - which is why getting out in the sun as you mentioned is recommended.

[gabkad in reply to bluebug]

True. A person would have to eat fish every day, at least two meals. A bit much for most of us for sure.

[Auntywoo in reply to gabkad]

I feel okay. Thank you

Have some joint aches and pains but on the whole seem to be coping with the Hypothyriodism well. I don't sleep well and have some wakeful times during the night. My hairloss has gone and the feeling very cold has also passed so things must be working. I still feel my TSH is too high. It was 2.10 three months ago and has risen to 2.77. I am thinking of changing my Thyroxin dose to 100mgs every second day and that would give me 50mgs more a week. What do you think?

This would be just my idea without consulting my Endo?

[bluebug in reply to Auntywoo]

See if you can convince your endo to up your dose before you self medicate.

[gabkad in reply to bluebug]

Agreed.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

Hi gabkad, do you have any idea what happens to calcium level at such high doses of vitamin D? Would it cause a high rise of calcium too?

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

I've watched so many lectures over the past few years so I can't tell you for sure if this was by a neurologist or a vitamin D specialist, maybe Hollick.

Mayo Clinic: The main consequence of vitamin D toxicity is a buildup of calcium in your blood (hypercalcemia), which can cause poor appetite, nausea and vomiting. Weakness, frequent urination and kidney problems also may occur.

Treatment includes the stopping of excessive vitamin D intake. Your doctor also may prescribe intravenous fluids and medications, such as corticosteroids or bisphosphonates.

Taking 50,000 international units (IU) a day of vitamin D for several months has been shown to cause toxicity. This level is many times higher than the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for most adults of 600 IU of vitamin D a day. ***side not from me: 600 iU doesn't do much if someone is deficient and we at ThyroidUK know it all too well.***

Doses higher than the RDA are sometimes used to treat medical problems such as vitamin D deficiency, but these are given only under the care of a doctor for a specified time frame. Blood levels should be monitored while someone is taking high doses of vitamin D.

According to the lecturer, the patient had been taking 400,000 IU per day! Something was wrong with the manufacture of the supplement.

When I took 50,000 IU per week for four weeks, then I stopped for two weeks and my blood level was just above the high figure in the range. I took it with fish oil so maximized absorption.

If a person is taking a very reasonable dose of vitamin D3 and levels don't improve, it's because there's some serious inflammation going on in the body.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

Well, the body probably does something with excess calcium if it's not too abundant. I think I remember reading that it's possible to absorb 25,000 units in one day of sun so possibly no real harm from calcium even though hard to tell. Thank you and hope you are feeling well.

After the election, be prepared for a huge immigration! haha

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

You are in the USA, right? Good luck.

In Canada we have housing issues with refugees. In Toronto the vacancy rate for rentals is 1.4%. It is estimated that over the rest of the year we'll be getting another 20,000 refugees not all of them Syrians. Well, goodluck. Rents are getting very high, landlords if they get 150 applications take the unit off the market, and put it back at a higher rent. Then they'll get 50 applications for the higher price. And even then people are bidding and then the rent gets even higher. Desperation central.

Been gardening all summer at a city owned allotment. It's been one hellishly hot summer, mostly drought so had to water every night. Bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers this year. It's been a great educational experience since I've never had a garden before. And it's great exercise being out there several hours a day in my 'vitamin D collection station'.

Hope you've done well and had a great summer.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

Oh crimey, that's crazy. Such a terrible situation worldwide. I see few foreigners in our locale.

You went to the Farmer's market previously, right, so now you have a community one? Wow, if you can do that, you must be feeling good. I never seem to collect vitamin D even though my skin is now dark brown.

Great summer. All the kids paid a visit from the four corners and I got to see Josh Groban in a live concert.

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

I quit going to farmer's markets because it was all so damn 'chichifoofoo'. Not like when I was a kid. Those days it was really just a farmer's market and not all this other silliness.

It was sort of a 'peer pressure' thing to find out if I can get an allotment. Plus, to be honest, the vegetables do taste better than what's in the store. And I know it's all 'beyond' organic. It's also a lot of fun because we have a social group. At the end of the day, we all sit in the 'beer tent', have a beer, shoot the breeze, and go home. The gardens officially close at 9 p.m. so party animaling doesn't happen.

Toronto Parks, Forests, and Recreation charge $85 dollars to 'rent' a plot. Once you get one, it's yours forever as long as you pay the annual dues. They provide water with stand pipes but ya gotta buy your own hose. Well, how did I know I'd have to read reviews and watch YouTube videos just to decide which hose to buy? I got a Flexilla. Very expensive but thank goodness because the standpipe is 65 feet from my garden gate and stiff hoses are awful to drag around.

The entire experience has been a steep learning curve. There's so much produce, I'm feeding neighbours and co-workers. I eat a lot of vegetables but it's impossible to consume everything and so far I have not bought a small chest freezer. That's for next year.

Because I did 'no till' 10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes popped up in the garden from the previous owner's produce. And two varieties of beans. Today I was on my hands and knees pulling out that dastardly chickweed when I discovered two little strawberry plants. Now I have to find out what should I do with them. i have no idea where the seeds may have come from. It's all these little pleasant surprises that makes this a gardening adventure. Stuff pops up and if I know it's not a weed, I let it grow. Like the huge Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate plant that occupies one corner.

The birds have feasted on the sunflower seeds. The bees have been busy visiting Borage flowers. And I've got purple yardlong beans that attract all different species of wasps, lady bugs and the occasional bumble bee. Other people are getting groundhog, rat, mouse, vole, and rabbit problems. I've got my own voodoo technique to keep them out without creating a fort knox fencing situation. These critters will always find a way in. The Trick is to deter them from bothering. My fences are way open and rabbits go in, come out. I've got lettuce growing right by the fence and the rabbits don't touch it.

Now the guys at the allotments want to do what I've been doing. Junior newbie gardener has cred!!!! YESSS! LOL!! I've got bunches of tomatoes ripening on straw on the ground and nothing eats them. These guys are 'I can't believe it'. 'Come and have a look'. Mwahahahaha! 'Voodoo' gardening works. It's cheaper than putting up small mesh fencing that basically only provides a jungle gym for mice to climb.

I applied my stuff around one guy's beans because he was losing them day by day to rodents chewing them off. Since the day I applied the stuff he's not lost a single plant. That was 5 weeks ago.

Much intrigue at the community allotments.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

Hehehehe, that was fun. Are you spraying urine around the plants? I won't ask whose. Or maybe a little taste of thyroxine?

I miss my gardening days. Would you like my canner? What a fabulous way to spend summer.

We have one of those foofoos and I told the lady I would rather put $3.50 toward something other than one garlic bulb. She gave me a dirty look!

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

No. I was reading that blood meal deters rodents except it has to be reapplied all the time.

So I thought, what if I take raw beef liver, liquidize with some water in the Nutribullet, then dilute it in the watering can out at the garden.

I poured a stream of this stuff along my fence lines.

It soaks into the ground and has a lasting deterent effect. I guess to the rodents it smells like a murder scene. One of my friends said it would attract flies. It didn't. I can't smell it because it's in the ground but rodents have their byways and highways, their regular routes through places. And they wander in a few feet but they wander straight out again.

I did sprinkle a bit of blood meal around my first batch of lettuce, but now I'm on batch three with nothing extra added as a deterent.

When I first did the liver juice application, a couple of the neighbours were watching me suspiciously, as in what the heck is she doing? Because obviously I wasn't 'watering the plants'. I poured it along the ground between my gate posts. Then along the outer perimeter of the fence.

Seems to have done the trick. I reapplied after 6 weeks and have not needed to do it again.

8 ounces of raw beef liver is certainly cheaper than putting up $50 dollars of extra fencing! And effortless.

You can't believe the sorts of planking, plastic, triple fencing these guys have engineered to keep out the animals. Meantime precisely in one of those gardens, 30 ripe Oxheart tomatoes got hollowed out overnight. There was so much damage it had to have been a groundhog. The guy whose garden this is was furious.

My view is forget about Fort Knox. My garden is totally accessible to rodents. And yet? They prefer to dine elsewhere.

Now a lady from Zimbabwe has asked me for the recipe because the mice are climbing up her African Maize plants and eating the corn. Hey, I have not kept it a secret what I'd been doing. Seems there's a 'buzz' going around the allotments because they see how my garden has everything intact. They are all intrigued.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

You are just plain brilliant. A friend just shoots anything that eats her vegetables. I like your way, but the groundhogs, we call them woodchucks, were always a problem so we shared. I prefer the heirloom tomatoes, too. yum, I have two plants.

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

There's no point killing the rodents. They just breed more of them because of some sort of pheromonal thing. It's like raccoons. Get rid of a bunch of them from a neighbourhood and next year the mother raccoons give birth to larger litters.

I was doing my best to explain this to the guys who were setting out mouse and rat traps.

Now they see there's other ways of doing things. Smarter ways.

I suppose there's stuff in my garden that groundhogs like to eat. Not just the tomatoes but there's carrots too. One of the older guys two plots over was amazed that my carrots did fine. Whenever he tried to grow them, something ate them.

The thing is the guys have been watching my garden because at the beginning of the growing season I told them that I have no idea what I'm doing since I've never had a garden before. Then it became a mystery why my beans didn't get chomped. They had to replant three times until finally their beans survived.

Then they got curious and started to watch my garden even more closely. LOL!

11:37 p.m. here: time for Zzzzzzzz.

[NatChap in reply to gabkad]

gabkad can you let me have the 'recipe' for your rodent deterrent? We get a lot of moles and they drive my hubby mad. Our garden is so uneven now because of them but I hate to kill anything. We also have mice at the bottom of the garden which my 9 year old feeds It would be nice to be able to deter them from coming further down the garden! Your allotment sounds amazing by the way! We used to have an allotment but it was just too difficult to maintain especially once my thyroid issues sprang up last year so we have now bought a small section of our neighbours garden to extend our own. My hubby has built lots of raised beds which have worked so well, loads of delicious carrots untouched by root fly, parsnips (grown in an old bath ) strawberries, runner beans, courgettes and in our greenhouse the most successful and delicious tomatoes we have ever grown called 'millefleur' with literally hundreds of fruit on one truss. It's so rewarding isn't it and also good for your health just getting out there

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

The strawberries will put out runners all over if you have a spot. I was zone 3 I think and they survive winter.

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

These are baby plants. Weird. The closest strawberries being grown in the allotments are at least 60 feet away from my garden. Maybe a bird pooped the seeds. Who knows.

I find all of this to be very interesting. This is not a 'farm' and I don't want it to be one. It's a garden and there's flowers and tomatoes and vegetables all jumbled up. The guys who have been growing stuff for decades look at my jungle and can't help but to give me 'unasked for advice'. Meantime I like it just as it is.

For next year I'm doing some major re-organization. But I'm going to be very careful with the soil because I don't till. Just aerate and top dress. I'm going to build four eight inch high 10' by 4' raised beds that over the next few years will become increasingly full with composts. Then there's the three side beds that go along the fence. Right now the black soil in the planting rows is 10 inches deep. Underneath is clay. I'm not going in there. Just leave it be. The potatoes managed to get all the way down to the clay layer.

Yes, the thyroid pills are working. I don't get tired anymore even if I'm outdoors working for hours and hours. Today in total I was out there for 4 hours. Not bad at all. I've grown rather attached to my garden. Never did understand about how other people love there's so much.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

Stick to your plan. There are some good companion plants so growing together is advantageous which can include flowers.

I know about clay. Over the years I added peat moss and compost. Some people just bury the garbage (good garbage) around the plants but good compost is gold. Did you give your tomatoes magnesium? We all need it, lol.

So glad to hear you figured out your T4 as I recall you were having a time with the dosing.

I wish I could have a real garden but my big pots will have to suffice. So glad you are enjoying yours.

[gabkad in reply to Heloise]

The tomatoes got composted chicken manure pellets, sheep manure, and 'sea compost' that contains seaweed and shrimp. I had considered watering with Epsom salt but never got around to it.

Next year I'm going to use some fermented whey around them.

The tomatoes and the carrots seemed to enjoy one another's company. The potato that lived closest to a tomato also seemed to enjoy the relationship. It kept flowering the longest of all the potato plants. And underneath there were more than 30 potatoes. It was like digging for easter eggs. These were Amarosa fingerling potatoes: the skin is mahogany, the flesh is pink. They are like 'new' potatoes. Low starch. Delicious.

Yes that's what I've done: plant weird things like purple asparagus beans. Those things are growing like mad. I think they grow about 5 inches per day. I'm picking a pound a day. Just have to tell the wasps to move over. They consume some sort of nectar at the base of where the beans and flowers grow. I read someplace that it sedates them so there maybe 100 different wasps all hanging out but they are not aggressive.

I planted some sort of heirloom peas along the fence. When they were up to a foot high, two tomato plants grew on their own by the fence post. Well, let me tell you, one of those tomato plants is my all time favourite. Clusters of yellow eggshaped tomatoes. This plant is now at least 8 feet wide along the fence and if the stupid guy next door hadn't chopped off the big branches heading through the fence, it would be the hugest tomato plant ever. I'm keeping seeds but also I am going to mash up a couple of ripe ones and smoosh them in the ground where I want them to grow next year. Then I get a trellis. I need to cover all bases with this beauty. It really is the most awesome tomato vine ever.

[Heloise in reply to gabkad]

Wowee, those beans seem amazing, I'll have to look them up. I have one yellow tomato plant which I bought half grown. How wonderful to have all that growth on yours. Obviously it doesn't need magnesium. Your soil must be very fertile.

The potatoes are unusual as well. I've seen purple ones in the market. Hmmmm I wonder if I could find a spot for those. I'm sure all are delicious.

[Hidden in reply to gabkad]

I so love reading about other people's gardening adventures! I am so envious. Crook back = not able to do what I'd like in that regard, however I am embarking on another attempt with exercises to improve my condition, so fingers crossed!

I will just mention that strawberries do indeed put out runners, and they will take over if you're not on top of things! My Other Half's father used to say give strawberry plants if you want revenge on your neighbour!

Slugs are probably the UK's worst pest when it comes to veggie destruction! Thousands of years of human evolution and we still can't figure out how to control them!

And what pray is 'chichifoofoo'? I am intrigued.

[gabkad in reply to Hidden]

It's pretentious fakery. I put two words together.

It's not unusual to find a farmers' market which consists mostly of stalls selling all manner of things not farmery. These attract your demographic with more money than sense. It becomes an outing and not a trip to pick up fruit and veg. Free parking becomes metered at high rates. So the sorts of people who want to buy a bushel of green beans or a bushel of red peppers are not the sort who would bother going to these places anymore. The price per pound is outrageous.

These days if you want to buy a couple of bushels of plum tomatoes to make sauce, a person goes out of town. But getting around on the roads with all the traffic and whatnot, but distances since there's serious amounts of urban sprawl, makes the prospect of doing so unappealing.

Mostly though even the farmers aren't making a 'killing' since they have to drive their produce into the city several days per week since the schedule for farmers markets varies from location to location. City Hall farmers' market is on Wednesdays, other ones are on Saturdays, and there's one open today, Monday. That's a lot of time away from the farm. They may be charging a lot of money for their products but it also costs a lot of money and time to drive in and set up. There are farmers who have stopped bothering and sell wholesale instead. It doesn't make financial sense when customers buy two or three tomatoes, or a couple of pounds of potatoes or onions.

That's why I'm glad I lucked out in getting the allotment. The city has loads of potential spaces to set up more of them, but they don't. Allotment gardening has become more and more popular because backyards are small and the raccoons and squirrels eat everything.

Last year's winter was warm so we have a bumper crop of rodents. It's been the hottest summer ever with two months of drought conditions, so if the tomatoes were watered almost every day, they've been loving it. I didn't plant any peppers but the neighbours are having amazing production.

Next year I'm buying a small chest freezer. I had no idea how much produce would grow in a little allotment.

Probably the strawberries won't become problematic because a really cold winter will most likely kill them. I don't know of anyone in this area who has 'problem strawberries'.... problem raspberry canes, yes.

Since we had a very dry summer, I found ONE slug! Incredible. I did expect more of them to be noshing on the lettuces.

[bluebug]

The mantra from the 60s but especially in the 80s was that no one on the UK was vitamin D deficient as it had been eliminated.

Unfortunately this means entire generations of doctors have been trained up in the UK and lots of developed countries NOT to look at vitamin D levels.

It is clear how far the stupidity has spread that a doctor ignores what a test result is telling them when they rely on test results, and call patients names when they turn up with signs and symptoms of deficiency.

[greygoose in reply to bluebug]

bluebug , this may be a stupid question, but how do you eliminate vit D deficiency? Eliminating a virus I can understand, but a deficiency? You might eliminate it in one person by supplementing, but how do you do that for the entire population? That sounds a little over-ambitious, to me...

[bluebug in reply to greygoose]

That's because you use commonsense and logic when given facts. You also question them which many in the medical profession don't do, which is why I don't automatically equal a healthcare professional with a scientist.

In regards to vitamin D public health advisors, who are normally medical doctors, thought the lack of malnutrition in the population as a whole meant that diseases such as rickets had disappeared. Unfortunately unlike some of our European neighbours they ignored all the elements that lead to diseases associated with vitamin D deficiency.

[greygoose in reply to bluebug]

They most definitely aren't scientists! lol

Thanks for the 'explanation'! Pft!

[Auntywoo in reply to greygoose]

Hello Greygoose,

I have always read your posts with high admiration of your knowledge and was hoping to get your comment on my results. If you have time could you please give me advice on my blood test.

I would be very grateful.

Many thanks Wendy (Auntywoo)

[greygoose in reply to Auntywoo]

Hi Wendy. There's really not much I can add. The others had said it all by the time I got here! lol

But, I would say that the range for the TSH really doesn't effect the result - a TSH is a TSH, and it should be one or below when you are on thyroid hormone replacement. Yours is too high.

So, your strange way of dosing should probably be abandoned for one of 100 mcg every day. Your FT3 is still on the low side - under mid-range. And your FT4 only just over mid-range.

Your doctor might think that's just great! But, he doesn't have to live with it! He might just change his mind, if he did.

[Auntywoo in reply to greygoose]

Thank you Greygoose,

I'm not seeing my Endo (female) for another six months as she thinks I am okay as is?

You may have seen I decided to take another 100mgs a fortnight. If I start taking 100mgs a day I will get my GP to check levels. A bit worried about rocking the boat. Michael, husband says get second opinion. Thanks for getting back to me.

Cheers

Wendy. XX

[greygoose in reply to Auntywoo]

I agree with Michael! That woman doesn't know what she's doing at all!

[Auntywoo]

Thank you for getting back to me I appreciate it very much.

I am sorry you were not looked after in regards to your Vit D.

You would think here in Oz we would get enough from the sun but this is not the case.

It seems hard to find good Endos in the UK.

[bluebug in reply to Auntywoo]

I think in the UK we are well aware of your cover up campaigns to prevent skin cancer.

I've read stories of triathletes who are out training in the sun everyday for hours at a time who are vitamin D deficient.

[NatChap in reply to Auntywoo]

Auntywoo we try and do the right thing by covering up or lathering ourselves in high factor suncream but unfortunately we then end up Vit d deficient. This summer I have only applied it to my face (don't want wrinkles ) and my shoulders as they burn easily. Think we just have to use some common sense..it seems silly to have to take supplements when we can get it naturally. Even with my kids I am not putting on any suncream straight away but letting them have some time in it uncovered.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Don't suppose they have checked for thyroid antibodies? There are two sorts TPO and TG. If either are high, then this means the cause is autoimmune thyroid - called Hashimoto's.

If you have Hashi, then adopting a 100% gluten free diet may help reduce symptoms and lower thyroid antibodies.

Also been found that selenium supplements may help us convert T4 to T3 and may also lower antibodies.

The low vitamin D issue can be several reasons - people with autoimmune diseases seem to need more/use more

vitamindcouncil.org/tag/aut...

We also might have vitamin D polymorphism

chriskresser.com/the-role-of-vitamin-d-deficiency-in-thyroid-disorders/

Apart from sunscreen stopping vitamin D production, I have also read that if you shower/bath soon after being in the sun, it washes off most of your vitamin D you just made (we are all too hygiene obsessed!)

[Auntywoo in reply to SlowDragon]

I should have said in my original post I,thankfully, do not have Hashis. I have been checked for Thyroid antibodies. All normal.

I also didn't mention I am 75 yo. 🤗 Do not spend time on the beach anymore just in the garden. Hardly ever put sunscreen on only when out walking in high thirty degree days. 😳