45 years on t4, most of those overmedicated. I have for past few years suffered with extreme fatigue, have explored and improved low vit D, low B12 and tried to reducce T4 to reduce my rt3 I had. Some of this with advice from this great community. All these adjustments have made improvements to my fatigue but only lasted temporarily. I felt my gp did not believe the extent of my fatigue so was shocked to receive a call from him a few days ago telling me he had had a ureka moment when reading a new research paper and immediately felt he was reading about me. "I want your cortisol tested for addisons he said" ..we have explored that verbally before but as I don't have auto immune problems or any classic symptoms and except the fatigue the idea was disregarded.
It seems no with his reading that he believes my problem is addisons secondary with the problem coming from my pituartary not functioning well..........I've researched it and so happy to say I have all those symptom.
The blood test is Tuesday, wish me luck as I am so hoping I have it and when treated can stay awake longer than my usual 6 hours a day.
Looking forward 🤞😀
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Auntyp62
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I can't guess how your doctor will test you for Addison's Disease. (I'm not a doctor.) He may start with a random cortisol blood test. If that comes back low then he will probably refer you to hospital for a Short Synacthen Test (SST).
Read this document from Page 66 - 68 so that you know what to expect :
There is a very faint possibility that you might have an Insulin Tolerance Test done, and you'll find that discussed from Page 6 - 9.
Obviously the document is intended for doctors not patients, but I always think it is nice to know what to expect. It also tells people what kind of preparation they need to do for different kinds of testing e.g. fasting, stopping meds when appropriate, etc. Doctors don't always pass that info on to patients. Note that if you are on HRT or oestrogen treatment of any kind it should be stopped for 6 weeks before the SST test.
I saw in one of your old posts that you had a Thyroid Check Plus 12 done a few months ago. I was surprised that your ferritin was good despite never having supplemented. It would be unusual on this forum.
Ferritin can be good or raised for various reasons, and one of those reasons is infection or inflammation. Your Thyroid Check Plus 12 must have included a CRP test which gives an indication of the level of inflammation or infection you might have. What was the result?
It is possible to have a "normal" (I hate that word) ferritin result and still be anaemic e.g. your serum iron could be in your boots with a "normal" ferritin. And note that there are several different kinds of anaemia with several different causes. The table at the bottom of this link is helpful.
If your tests for Addison's Disease come back okay, and you want to try something else to fix your problems one thing you could try is to switch from levothyroxine to NDT. There are a lot of people on this forum who never feel well on Levo but do very well on NDT.
And did you ever try taking T3 only? How did the experiment go?
Okay, there is nothing to indicate a problem with those numbers. I'm still surprised at how high your ferritin level is though. People on this forum who have never supplemented usually have ferritin levels which are very low, or alternatively there are a very few people with a very high level because of a genetic problem. But I suppose there can always be exceptions and you seem to be one of them.
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Can anyone recommend somewhere I can get a test for all vitamins and minerals.
Why is it hard to get diagnosed 
Can't get a diagnosis
Help please getting quite desperate
Struggling to get my dosage correct.
