Looking for an Endo recomendations

[MrsFitz]

So my GP thinks I am over medicated but I think I am under medicated, my blood tests were posted recently. My GP now wants an Endo to confirm either way. I live in Gloucestershire and am looking for one in Bristol or Birmingham, any recommendations for an new Endo that supports taking T3?

[Hidden]

I cannot recommend an endo as I'm not in the UK. I hope others will chime in.

It's normal to have a suppressed TSH when on T3, both synthetic and NDT. As has been pointed out here many times, the TSH is a pituitary hormone, not a thyroid hormone, so what you need to focus on when on T3 are your free Ts, mainly your FT3 levels as that is the truly active hormone which will determine your basic metabolic rate.

Do you multi dose T3 or take it once daily? IMHO, your FT3 levels could be a little higher but, if you feel fine, no need to change anything. If you left 24 h between taking T3 and having blood drawn, you can count on your FT3 levels being about 20% higher on the previous day given the short half-life of T3. Logically, this would mean they were ca 10 % higher on the previous day if you left 12 h between taking meds and going to the lab...?

I understand it's common to have lowish FT4 levels when on T3 along with T4. If you add some T4 simply to raise your FT4 levels, you risk having some of it convert to reverse T3 (rT3) which will block the action of free T3.

[MrsFitz in reply to Hidden]

Oh believe me, I have tried to convince my GP that I have researched this but she is concerned that I will have a problem in the future being over medicated.

I agree that if I felt ok there would be no problem but I have been diagnosed with CFS, so I want to be optimal on my thyroid meds and vitamin levels. I didn't take any thyroid meds in the 24 hrs before the blood test.

To be honest I am annoyed that I will need to pay for advice to give my NHS GP, seems pointless to me.

[Hidden in reply to MrsFitz]

OK, so then your FT3 levels were approximately 6.1 on the previous day. This means there is room for raising it further should you feel the need to.

I have never heard of any endo accepting a suppressed TSH; from what I've read over the years, it seems endos are the worst when it comes to accepting anything out of the ordinary. I hope I'm wrong, though, and that someone in the UK can recommend a really good endo caring more about symptom relief and the well-being of the patient than lab results...

One problem seems to be that few endos specialise in thyroid disease, so they don't know much about treating thyroid disease except that, if hypo, you need enough T4 to maintain a "normal" (anywhere in range) TSH...many endos don't even seem to test free Ts although those are the actual thyroid hormones...

[Shelley1954]

I have sent you a private message re a good endo.

[Clutter]

MrsFitz,

Email [e-mail] for a list of member recommended endos. You should check with their offices before making an appointment whether they prescribe T3.

My NHS endo thinks I am oversuppressed with TSH <0.01 and has been trying to persuade me to reduce dose to target TSH 0.05. 3 dose reductions didn't budge TSH and I refused to reduce further.