Graves disease

[purple64]

My gp has asked for a random blood test. What does this mean in relation to hyper thyroid? Does anyone know please

[helvella Administrator]

Question is, a random test for what? Have you got a request form?

[purple64 in reply to helvella]

No. TSH has gone up and T4 has gone down so she said lets do a random blood test in 4 weeks 🤔

[helvella Administrator in reply to purple64]

Looks as if the word "random" was randomly thrown into that sentence from the doctor!

It does make sense to wait a while and see what happens. Sometimes thyroid hormone levels can temporarily rise - and then fall back to what they usually are for you.

Do you have the actual test results? Including reference ranges? What symptoms do have?

[purple64 in reply to helvella]

TSH went from almost nothing to 10 and T4 has gone from 32 to 6.7 after taking 30mg of Carbimazole . Now has been cut back to 15mg. Not sleeping very well, brain is rapid body exhausted, hot and cold, dizzy, feel flat.

[helvella Administrator in reply to purple64]

Carbimazole is very effective at stopping the thyroid making any thyroid hormone.

It takes some time, several weeks, for the accumulated excess thyroid hormone levels (stored inside your thyroid, in your blood, etc.) to reduce. Of course, as your thyroid is not making any thyroid hormone, you go sailing right through from being hyperthyroid to being hypothyroid. And that seems to be where you are.

So many people get to this stage and suffer many weeks or months in which their carbimazole dose gets adjusted. Some are put on "Block and Replace" - keep the carbimazole dose high but supply thyroid hormone as levothyroxine tablets.

In my opinion, keeping people on any particular dose and not testing for weeks at a time is unacceptable. You should be able to get another test as and when you need one. Your body doesn't read guidance and agree to only change every four weeks.

[Verity93]

I did ask about block and replace but she said lets wait and see what the next blood test results are. By the sound of what you are saying the levels can go up and down like a yo yo ? Hopefully one day it will level out and I will be on a maintenance dose. Perhaps it could take up to 4 weeks for it all to adjust? I've no idea as I'm new to all this. As you rightly say the body doesn't read the guidelines! Memory is useless at the moment have to write things down. Can't concentrate, lose track of what I'm saying. Was referred to endocrine in April 17 can't get appointment until September. In the meantime just try and go with it all.