Hormones and Thyroid?

[Thyroiditis86]

Hello all. I had a hormone test done at the Dr's today.

I am only 30 and it does not look good. I am wondering, can this affect my thyroid in anyway? I am also very orange in the skin, my hair is falling out and no periods since February. My NHS endo is useless. I am stuck and don't know what to do. I feel very, very low and so desperate at the moment. Can these results correlate with hormones in some way?

[Saggyuk]

Hi there

I'm not an expert on these but have been reading a little on this topic lately. Obviously the FSH and LH are low but could be normal if blood test taken at certain times of the month as indicated but this would be hard for you to tell if not having any periods. However, this itself along with low oestradiol results indicate a there is an issue here.

If anything, it would more likely be the other way round. Uncontrolled thyroid disease can cause all these to be low. There are a few other rarer issue like pituitary/hypothalamus disorders/disease but the other obvious one which is more statistically likely is being underweight/eating disorder/malnutrition/ low body fat plus over exercising etc.

I read over some of your previous posts which talk about the problems with food and weight and pretty much all your problems could be caused by this including the low thyroid levels. Obviously there is a small chance of other issues but personally I think that completely ruling out the stomach as the cause would be the best place to start.

Jut to check the obvious: the likeliest issue to cause you to have stomach problems all the time regardless of what you're eating at that particular time is coeliacs or non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. I know you mention you are gluten free already but just to check - how long have you been gluten free and is it 100% totally gluten free - did you fully read up on cross contamination and learn how to avoid it, did you get a new toaster and chuck out the old, lipstick even has it in there etc. For example, If you were coeliac, tiny crumbs once a week is enough to keep you permanently ill, even one meal with gluten in once every three months is enough to keep you permanently ill. Coeliacs can take well over a year to heal a stomach and for immune system reaction to go down for example. Apologies, if you already have done this properly, Just wanted to double check as many people don't realise the important of truly ensuring it is 100% and don't realise it is still in the foods they're eating. I have this issue and can't even tolerate malt or even barley malt extract or one crumb without popping up in blisters half hour later.

I know you also mention having checked for other intolerances but did you do it properly? Did you try a six week elimination diet and then very slowly add things back in one at a time?

If this doesn't work and you really feel that ill when eating and is resulting in this type of effect on your overall health, you really need a referral to a gastroenterologist for full investigation into your stomach as there are other things that can cause similar issues such as crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis etc etc - my cousin has the latter and has trouble eating anything so would be good to rule stomach out properly as the main cause. Did the stomach issues start first before the rest of these complications or was it other things?

Then of course, you can't completely ignore the more rarer pituitary issues like pituitary failure/tumours and I remembered reading about things like hypopituitarism which could actually be caused through head injury as you mentioned you had and actually could fit the description (including stomach issues, decreased appetite and face puffiness) and can be determined through more intensive investigation such as further hormone blood tests, MRIs, Stimulation or dynamic testing. Your sex hormones and thyroid are already low but have you had more in depth testing and have you even had your adrenal function checked or even growth hormone? I think they should do more testing in the pituitary area if the stomach issue can't be resolved.

Please bear in mind I'm not an expert and don't even believe for one minute that I solve your issues which seem very complicated but I can see you're so frustrated about not being able to work out what the issue is and know exactly how that feels so although there could be numerous other possible causes I don't even know about, I thought maybe it might help to at least help you rule a couple of things out properly - just in case you hadn't already.

I do hope you get to the bottom of it

[Thyroiditis86 in reply to Saggyuk]

Thank you so do much for this. You are so kind to reply. I will show this to my endocrinologist. Thank you so much again xx