Help with mother’s results please

[Hillz2000]

Hi all, my mum is 66 and has been on thyroxine for an underactive thyroid for 20+ years. She takes 100mg a day. She has been experiencing worsening of her symptoms (fatigue, brain fog etc) lately and I said I’d take a look at her results & run then past this group.

The GP won’t do T3 or antibodies without due cause - seeing as how she has TSH & T4 done every 6 months they’d need a solid argument to test the others now.

From what I can see, her TSH is suitably suppressed at 0.02 mu/l (0.3-4.2) and her FT4 is 23.3 pmol/L (10.6-23.2). Would having the FT3 be important to determine if she is suitably dosed at this point?

Thanks

Hilary

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Hillz2000

Would having the FT3 be important to determine if she is suitably dosed at this point?

Absolutely!

Her current results are similar to how mine were 20 years ago after being on Levo for 20+ years. Suppressed TSH and over range FT4. It took me a lot of time and money seeing private doctors, then being bullied by an NHS endo, then finding this group to find out exactly what the problem was.

I would suggest that your mum does a Blue Horizon or Medichecks full thyroid/vitamin panel. I would take a guess that her FT3 is low and she's not converting T4 to T3 very well. She might even have low nutrient levels.

Blue Horizon Thyroid Plus Eleven - bluehorizonmedicals.co.uk/t... - order before the end of August and use code AUGUST20 to get 20% off that price.

Medichecks Thyroid Check UltraVit - medichecks.com/thyroid-func...

Both tests are the same, can be done by fingerprick or venous blood draw if preferred at extra cost.

[Hillz2000 in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thank you for this. I figured this would be the answer but wanted to hear it from some of you to make sure I was on the right track. In fact the first thing I said to mum when I saw her results was ‘they didn’t do your T3!’

[Celestialbeing]

Based on your mum’s high FT4, IMO, her dose can be lowered. As Susie, suggests, a FT3 and Reverse T3 would be helpful in determining if she is converting the T4 and if it is being used.

On synthetic alone, and 20 years out, the TSH can be raised to 0.50. The key is that the FT4 an FT3 are at good levels for her well-being. If your mum was using a T4/T3 combination, her TSH would be lower anyway but it would be ok as she would be receiving the proper amounts of T4/T3.