Hi All,
It looks like I have Hashimotos but am not yet being treated. I’m hoping that will change tomorrow.
This week I started taking temperature readings as I saw on this forum this can also be a symptom.
I’ve been getting readings from 35.5 to 36.4 C. I realise that these are low, but at what temperature should I worry?
Thanks 🙂
Body temperature is not much use, there are so many factors that can affect it. We all have slightly different temperatures.
Sorry but I think you'll find that the 'old thyroid greats' saw body temperature as one of the best gauges, and there are practitioners who still do, have this view as a better gauge than TSH/range #'s etc, at very least as a reliable factor.
Of course there is a protocol for this - timing/charts over time - to establish our own pattern.
Sorry to hear that MelonJ - mine has been very low for years now and no one wants to know. So long as I'm in the region of 36.3-4 C I'm functioning fairly well. When I'm below 35.4 and lower, I'm not good at all.
Mine has even been 34.4C in August - I use both shake-down mercury and digital - my husband shakes down the mercury [I haven't got the energy 
]... like I'd 'cheat' in any event!?
Apparently medicine can do little about low temps... at that point in history; either that or people are just fobbed off as with much else thyroid related.
Hi
I found( with my specialist insistence) a basal temperature v helpful when I moved to ndt.
How low is low 32 degrees.
Now I’ve swapped it circa 36.2 plus I’ve no dhea so I also swapped supplements/ meds. Do much better and no sinus pain. I knew I was allergic to fillers as well as being coeliac.
In short I resisted temp for 10 years. Now sleep and feel better. I hate to say it but the ndt is more balanced ratio wise for me and less fillers has to be a good thing. I also have an auto immune problem and for some people an increase will be v hard but it is a tried and tested way. Better than tsh!!
Temperature can fluctuate throughout the day. Take temps 3, 6 and 9 hours after waking (I woke at 8am so I will take 11am, 2pm and 5pm) add up these recordings and divide by three, this will give you your average daily temperature. Try and record for at least 5 days, if there’s a fluctuation on the daily averages this could be due to adrenal/cortisol issues. If temps are consistently low then it’s possible you need more thyroid medication.
Since having my thyroid destroyed and going Hypo I have found my body temperature is always 36 instead of 37. Recently having had my T3 stopped and trying to do just levo it was sometimes 32.5 and at that point I was barely functioning. Now I've added the T3 back it's fluctuating between 34.5 and 36. There obviously is a connection here to thyroid but doctor wasn't bothered when I told him
Just to clarify body temperature is a crude measure open to numerous influences and fluctuations. It was useful in the old days when there was nothing else and doctors were gods dealing with uneducated patients unable to express themselves. It is still used in research when combined with oxygen consumption. Each person has their own natural body temperature.
The problem arises when one tries to ascribe any precision to it, using body temperature for titration of treatment. Of course, low temperatures below 35 degrees Celsius are informative but minor variations above 35C do not reflect hormone levels accurately. Using body temperature to titrate thyroid hormone treatment is false science, seeking precision where there isn’t any.
The same applies to using TSH without considering factors such as free hormone levels and clinical response. Both can be very useful when figures are way out, but they can rarely be used as independent variables. Feeling cold, having freezing legs, having to wear thermals indoors is a much better marker than a thermometer in your armpit.
Thanks All. Seems to be divided opinion on this one. I’m not using it as the only measure of how good or bad I feel, just another clue.
Although I always feel cold when others around me don’t it’s never caused me any problems so I’m it’s own I’m not worried about it. I just wear an extra layer.😊
I wouldn't pay too much attention to low temperature. Some work carried out a few years ago in which I was involved couldn't find any correlation between low temperatures and low thyroid function.
However, chronic infections (and other things for all I know) can lead to low body temperature and poor temperature regulation. My daughter's temperature has now normalised following treatment for chronic infections (for which we had to go to America), as well as many other symptoms disappearing or improving that we had wrongly attributed merely to hypothyroidism. Jane x
Read Wilsons Low Temperature Syndrome.
Low body temperature 
How to check my temperature for Hypo
Low body temperature 
low, UNSTABLE core temperature
