Latest visit to the blood lab.

[LAHs]

Here is an interesting little story. I went for my blood test yesterday at my doctor’s office. They were not very busy so the lady who checked me in was able to chat. I always ask my doc for Free T3, Free T4 and TSH. Of course, I would like a lot more but that is more than I can expect. My doc never takes any notice and I end up with TSH and TT4. For this reason I have a private complete thyroid panel once or twice a year. Anyway, just out of morbid curiosity I asked the lady at the desk what the doc had requested for me. She answered a Thyroid panel! I said that that was pretty unlikely, could she be more specific. She said T4 and T3. I pushed my luck and asked if it was Free or Total. She had to read her screen and said, "Free" and then added that she had never heard of that one. I mentioned that the Free T’s are more diagnostic than the Totals. She asked me to explain about that since she had a thyroid problem and didn’t feel very well! Now this is the lady who works in my doctor’s blood lab and knows nothing about her own illness, we even have the same doc! She said that he only measures TSH and said it in a way that that was perfectly OK. I told her that if she was being medicated to TSH then she was pretty much guaranteed that she was under medicated, and probably the reason why she felt (and looked) quite ill. In our short time together I told her to join this forum and to read a couple of books. I am not sure if I got through to her during such a short encounter but I felt very sorry for her.

It was encouraging however to learn that my doc now knows that Free T3 and Free T4 are viable quantities. Well, either that or he is just humoring me and really thinks I am an impossible nut job.

[Raventhorpe]

I'm not surprised that she didn't know much about thyroid test's, if gp don't know these things then there's not much hope of the other medical staff having proper knowledge, let's hope you got through to her and she'll look on here for guidance. The other week when I was making appointment to see doc receptionist said what's it for I said it's about my graves desease, she said what's that and how do you spell it !! she had never heard of it.im afraid we are the forgotten ones.

[LAHs in reply to Raventhorpe]

OMG, how do you spell it! I lose all hope when I here that phrase.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to LAHs]

Is there an outside possibility that the doctor trained outwith the UK?

Graves' disease owes its name to the Irish doctor Robert James Graves,[30] who described a case of goitre with exophthalmos in 1835.[31] The German Karl Adolph von Basedow independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840.[32][33] As a result, on the European Continent, the terms Basedow's syndrome,[34] Basedow's disease, or Morbus Basedow[35] are more common than Graves' disease.[34][36]

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