Taking thyroid medication before blood test

[Chrys]

I am probably being dense, but why is it recommended to abstain from medication for 24 hours before testing? I would have thought that if the test was to determine if the treatment was working, it would need to be taken when on medication?

[shaws Administrator]

If you take hormone medication before the blood test, it skews the results and may cause the doctor to reduce your dose as the hormones would be above 'range'. Your TSH may then be very low or suppressed, so they'll reduce your dose of T4.

They believe if it is too low we'll get heart disease or osteoporosis but they don't realise that if we're not on sufficient we could devleop heart disease or osteo.

They only real way of knowing if a particular dose is working is by how 'The Patient Feels' on a particular dose. Hopefully, no clinical symptoms whatsoever.

[Lynneypin in reply to shaws]

Hi Shaws

Interested in your comment that if we are under medicated we could develop osteo.... I've always been told I'm risking making my osteo worse by taking thyroid support.

[shaws Administrator in reply to Lynneypin]

In my phrase regarding levothyroxine 'They believe if it is too low' I should have said 'if TSH is too low'. So they do not give us sufficient to bring TSH down by frightening by saying we could get these conditions. A couple of links:-

web.archive.org/web/2010103...

Excerpt:

Talking out of both sides of its collective mouth, the endocrinology specialty continues to treat thyroid cancer patients with TSH-suppressive dosages of thyroid hormone, while authoritatively warning hypothyroid patients and other doctors that TSH-suppressive doses are likely to cause arrhythmias and heart attacks. The specialty's self-contradicting inconsistency is so glaring that it unveils conflicts of interest that honorable people would be ashamed to be caught in.

web.archive.org/web/2010103...

The above doctor/scientist has died but he'd never, ever prescribe levothtyroxine - only natural dessicated thyroid hormones which contain all of the hormones a healthy gland would produce (since 1892 in several forms up to the 60's) when levo and blood tests were brought in or T3 only for thyroid resistant patients

[Clutter]

Chrys,

You want to know what your wife's normal circulating hormone levels are not the peak levels caused by recent ingestion of thyroid meds. If your wife is taking NDT or T3 then it is better to leave 8-12 hours between last dose and blood draw as T3 can peak in the blood for up to six hours.

[Chrys in reply to Clutter]

Thanks, she has a BH test tomorrow AM, so no T3 tonight.