Patients have also learnt that TSH drops after eating. Hence the patient to patient tip to get tests as early as possible in morning and fasting
Also very important If you are taking vitamin B complex, or any supplements containing biotin, remember to stop these 3-5 days before any blood tests, as biotin can falsely affect test results
Huddy1234 No it's not that it's more or less accurate per se, but it's a game of tactics many of us we feel we have to play with Drs! We want the TSH at its highest practically possible and FT3 & 4 at their lowest to encourage Drs to treat optimally. They often ignore or misinterpret results anyway so it's all a bit pointless but we have to do our best to optimise our treatment lol! So we keep our patient ploys to ourselves ..... My hospital has a walk in blood draw dept, seeing fasting patients before 9.00 and non-fasting after, so I always arrange to be there a little before 9.00 and if they've run out of fasting people I get seen sooner rather than later. But back in the day when I didn't have access to any such thing as an Internet, I took my Levo any old when, always slugged it down with coffee before during or after a meal, rarely bothered with blood tests (or seeing Drs) but if I did, had them whenever there was an appointment - and felt great ..... 😉
Not sure why you discussed it with whoever took your blood. Patient to patient tips are just that, doctors, nurses, phlebotomists, will almost never agree so absolutely no point in mentioning it.
I am assuming you didn't take your dose of levothyroxine on Monday which is not the right procedure.
What you do, if you take a morning dose is don't take the dose on the morning of the test but afterwards, you fast but can drink water. This, in effect, means your last dose was on Monday a.m.
The 'Lady' who drew your blood doesn't have hypothyroidism and besides many people who have hypothyroidism also have a high cholesterol level which a fasting test would also show an accurate result.
She is obviously one of the very lucky ones for whom levothyroxine works fine (there are millions like that) but she is on a dose which has relieved all her clinical symptoms.
Most on this forum are struggling, either to get diagnosed or have an inefficient doctor/endocrinologist and who do not understand why they aren't improving.
When people were prescribed NDT (natural dessicated thyroid hormones) which was the only prescription for hypo since 1892 up until the late 50's.60's we were given increased doses until we had relief of all clinical symptoms and doses were around 200mcg to 400mcg so I have read. One of our doctors also stated that the doses they give nowadays are too low to benefit the patient who still complain.
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