TSH during IVF

[blaudag]

I suffered from viral subacute thyroiditis in 2016 and I have become subclinically hypothyroid.

I cannot handle taking thyroid hormone (synthetic or natural) so I have resorted to taking swanson thyroxine-free glandular. I have adrenal problems that I have mostly overcome but I still crash when too stressed or... when I take thyroid hormones. This swanson glandular has worked for me and my TSH has gone down from between 6-7 to 3,2-3,5. My FT3 and FT4 have always been good in mid-range.

However I began IVF stimmulation with Menopur and my TSH has gone all over the place again during these two weeks: first week 6.9 and now 7.7.

These past two weeks my FT3 has also increased slightly from 2.6 to 3.3 and FT4 decreased from 1.3 to 1.1. I cautiously took one pill of metavive I (15mg) every three days, afraid of crashing (in total I took two pills during these last 10 days). Could the change in FT3 and FT4 be from that?

I have crashed these past two days and I have no idea if it was from IVF medication (it was a high dose) or from the metavive.

I will only be doing a frozen embryo transfer so I have time to prepare my TSH and lower it down to 2.5 like my doctor is requesting understandably. I am getting ready to take metative I every day after egg collection. But I have no idea how it will go.

What would you advise? Has anyone gone through something similar?

[greygoose]

Have you ever had your antibodies tested?

[blaudag in reply to greygoose]

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I have. I have never had thyroid antibodies.

[greygoose in reply to blaudag]

OK

[SilverAvocado]

The issue of struggling to raise hormone even though you definitely need it is quite common. The usual explanation is that its adrenal issues, contributed by vitamin levels.

Without the ranges I can't interpret you freeT3 and freeT4 at all, but every TSH reading you've mentioned is quite high. Ideally you want it around 1, that's what a healthy person would have. Numbers like 7 are very high, and 3.5 use high enough to be very ill.

You don't mention your overall symptoms. Do you feel unwell with things like fatigue? Or are you doing fine? Symptoms are more important than blood tests, really. Some people can manage on unusual numbers.

Have you had much treatment for the adrenal fatigue? Usually it's possible to raise the thyroid treatment eventually, by getting everything else in place. Have you got results for folate, ferritin, vit D and vit B12? Have you done a 24hr a alive cortisol test or had any other adrenal diagnosis?

Alongside getting those optimal, the other thing you can try is to start the thyroid hormone super slow. Crush or cut with a razor blade to get the tiniest size of tablet you can reliably get, and start on that each day. If you don't have a reaction, stick with that for several weeks. If you do have a reaction, drop back to one dose every second day. After maybe a month or six weeks try to add a 2nd tiny piece. Be prepared to drop back if you have a reaction there. I've heard you may need to hold as many as 12 weeks.

As you improve on each one of these 3, the others get easier. The more thyroid dose you can get to, the easier it is on your adrenals. The better vitamins get, the better your absorbtion of thyroid hormone is, etc, etc.

[blaudag]

The ranges are:

TSH 0,4-4,2

FT3 2,1-4,4

FT4 0,7-1,8

My adrenals have been treated by a functional doctor for the past three years. I was a very severe/advanced case and I am so much better now. Not a 100% recovered, but very functional, almost close to “normal”.

As for lab results my D3 is very good (I supplement), my ferritin is low since I’ve become hypothyroid. I don’t have numbers for folate or B12 but I take Ultra Preventive X since I began the adrenal treatment and I will start soon taking 1000mcg methylfolate. I know I have the heterozygous MTFHR C677T mutation.

As for how I feel, I feel good while taking the thyroxine-free glandular. Probably I could feel even better, but that is good enough for me. It’s just not doable to get pregnant and during pregnancy and that is my challenge.

Your advice seems really good. I will try to follow it and go very slow. Thank you.