After my recent blood tests my Doctor had said everything was normal!! he had not requested to see me and he did not ask if I had symptoms, this was all done over email!! but I knew something was wrong as I was not feeling welI.
A chance meeting with a Consultant Endocrinologist socially last week highlighted the need to raise more awareness of this condition in our GP surgeries. My new found Endo friend checked my bloods and advised an increase of levo. How can we educate our Doctors more, it doesn't help with the anxiety of the illness when your medical professional is not prepared to help; you would think they would be happy to be challenged given their average day of sneezes and spots.
I was lucky, but not everyone has access to an Endo or indeed this forum - what about those people that just accept what their Doctors are telling them, they must lead a life of misery.
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barb62
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I think part of the problem these days - as opposed to when I was a lot younger, being a child of the 1950s when family doctors knew you, checked your pulse and blood pressure, told you to stick your tongue out, pulled down your lower eye lids, checked reflexes, all sorts of basic checks that told them something - is that doctors now seem to only diagnose by numbers - blood test results - they don't seem to see the patient any more nor do any of these basic checks. So if your number fits within a certain range then you can't be ill or need any alteration to your medication if you've been lucky enough to be diagnosed with what's causing your problem in the first place.
Fortunately, my surgery doesn't do email consultations (yet!!), I refuse phone consulations, and much prefer to see the Advanced Nurse Practioner as he is more approachable and listens better than any of the GPs at my surgery.
Totally agree with your first paragraph SeasideSusie. Atmy surgery, you cannot make a appointment without talking on the phone with a Doctor, this has filtered out all the unnecessary appointments. Surely this leaves them time for the real stuff! I need to get on their public patient information group I think.
Re this thread with SeasideSusie, grey goose, Marz... I showed my son, who is a junior doctor, the poem about Thyroid examination etc the other day...he pointed out that this observation and hands-on approach is suitable for thyroid patients who are actually very poorly, and would have such visual symptoms for some time ( or third world patients), while blood tests are much quicker picking up anomalies. I must admit he had a point. Somehow we need the NHS to change for eg the ranges of blood tests, like TSH, if doctors are going to rely on such numbers. But who is responsible for that, not patients, not the doctors we come across in hospital or surgery...? Same people who give monopolies to drug companies, and allow T3 to cost 20 plus times that in Europe etc?
This can is why there's over 82,000 members on here and rising at 1000 a month
It's a scandal of epic proportions, the vast majority of patients are female, (8 or 9 out of 10) so it's a gender issue too
Dr Toft, past president of the British Thyroid Association and leading endocrinologist, states in Pulse Magazine,
"The appropriate dose of levothyroxine is that which restores euthyroidism and serum TSH to the lower part of the reference range - 0.2-0.5mU/l.
In this case, free thyroxine is likely to be in the upper part of its reference range or even slightly elevated – 18-22pmol/l.
Most patients will feel well in that circumstance. But some need a higher dose of levothyroxine to suppress serum TSH and then the serum-free T4 concentration will be elevated at around 24-28pmol/l.
This 'exogenous subclinical hyperthyroidism' is not dangerous as long as serum T3 is unequivocally normal – that is, serum total around T3 1.7nmol/l (reference range 1.0-2.2nmol/l)."
You can obtain a copy of the articles from Thyroid UK email print it and highlight question 6 to show your doctor please email Dionne at
tukadmin@thyroiduk.org
Professor Toft recent article saying, T3 may be necessary for many,
I actually copied and pasted the professional email from the Endo so that my GP could see his credentials. The Endo in question did not ask me to leave out his name.
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Doctor making complaint against a good endocrinologist because he emailed me requesting another blood test
How long can I expect to wait for a referral?
I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow and want to be refered to an endo......how do I convince him to refer me?
Testing on NDT or T3 or Combo
