Please help with a weird thyroid situation.

[Gg145]

Hi! I just got test results (attached) and i don't know what to do next... I don't have autoimmune thing, but my TSH was up to 15 earlier this year. Levo made me feel worse so I stopped and started eating lots or seaweed and taking a iodine supplement (some russian thing, i dunno what it is exactly) and so now my TSH is much lower, which is nice, but how do I get it down to 2? And what does low free T4 mean? Is it even too low?

I still struggle to gain any weight and eat enough to get enough vitamins from food.

Thank you!

[diogenes Remembering]

By taking large amounts of iodine when you probably don't need it, you are suffering the Wolff-Chaikoff effect. This is the inhibition of the production of thyroid hormones in your gland by the action of the excess iodine. With that, this will raise your TSH levels and you could be damaging your health by too much iodine.

[Gg145 in reply to diogenes]

I see! So i gotta lay off the iodine

[diogenes Remembering in reply to Gg145]

No, cut it down until the minimum you need to keep healthy. If necessary, none at all if you live in an iodine-sufficient area.

[Gg145 in reply to diogenes]

I see! I will try

[Angel_of_the_North]

Your TSH might be lower but your Free T4 is also too low (although I'm guessing the range as none are given) Really results are not much use without ranges. Remember that iodine used to be given to HYPERthroid patients to suppress thyroid hormones. Your B12 isn't great, either.

[Gg145 in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

The ranges seem to be different per country SO there is no way to know the real range it seems. My T4 is just on the border, so it's in bold, but that's according to just one possible range

What should B12 be ideally? I was taking a supplement for a month now, I gotta get some more I guess!

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Gg145]

The ranges for most blood tests vary not by country, but by laboratory, or even by specific analyser within the laboratory. (As well as age, gender, and possibly other factors.) Further, the units of many tests vary (that is often, but not always, by country).

[Gg145 in reply to helvella]

Is there any consensus at least among people on this forum on the free T4 ranges?

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Gg145]

No - they literally do vary depending on the technology used (as well as other factors).

The only thing that you can do is work out where in range you are - for example, if you were tested for FT4 and has a result of 15 in a range of 10.0 to 20.0 works out halfway (50%). We would hope that whatever lab/test is used, you would end up about the middle of their range.

You absolutely MUST use the reference range from the lab that did your analysis.