These are my blood test results from 2 days ago after not taking any thyroxine or T3 or HRT for 6 weeks. They are also at odds with a test done by the NHS 2 weeks ago with respect to the FT3 reading - which I posted a couple of weeks ago. Can anyone help interpret them ?
Total thyroxine (T4) 61 nmol/L 59-154
Thyroid stimulating hormone 54.9
Range mIU/L 0.27 - 4.2
Free thyroxine 9.3
Range pmol/l 12.0 - 22.0
Free T3 3.4 pmol/L 3.1 - 6.8
Thyroid antibodies
Thyroglobulin antibody 54.9
IU/mL 0-115
Thyroid peroxidase antibodies 14.2
IU/mL 0 - 34
Method used for both Roche Modular.!
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You are seriously Hypothyroid - why did you stop taking your Thyroxine? Look how high your TSH is - your Pituitary Gland has had to overwork to produce that.
Your Thyroxine also protects your Pituitary Gland from overworking as well as providing every cell in your body with the essential hormone.
How are you feeling?
Have you started back on your Thyroxine now? It is for life.
I stopped because I was feeling very jittery, palpitations, couldn’t sleep and generally very unwell from taking T3 T4 and HRT and not knowing which was causing the problem. I have never felt well since I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2013 ..... which is why I’d been trying T3.
I know the replacement thyroid hormones are for life. But my life was becoming unbearable so I felt desperate. I always planned to re-start but I did leave it a bit longer than I had thought, mainly because I didn’t feel any different. If anything I felt a bit better. I was very tired at the start of the week and felt dreadful after I’d been for a swim. I re-started taking T4 about 5 minutes after I took the blood for that test a couple of days ago. And added in some T3 the following day on the advice of Greygoose - so I’m now taking 50ug Levothyroxine and 5 ug T3. I will build up from there. Advice about how quickly I can do that would be appreciated. Not taking any HRT. At some point I’ll need to add it back in but one thing at a time so I can see what was causing me to feel even more unwell than I did before I started taking T3.
What I though was odd about those results wasn’t the high TSH but that T3 is within range. Previous results showed that I didn’t convert very well.
Were you prescribed T3? After 6 weeks without - it is still in range (just). Why stop Thyroxine? Why not just reduce or reduce / stop T3.
Because I had never felt well on Levothyroxine, my endocrinologist suggested taking more T4 as well as the T3 that he’s prescribed ( 75 ug T4 and 5 ug T3) despite my saying I didn’t feel well and that I had palpitations. My HRT had been changed from patches to gels at around the same time. I didnt know what was causing me problems. Remember I hadn’t felt well on Levothyroxine either
for a long time. I thought that might be causing me problems. So I wanted to stop and clear my system and then re- start with 50 Levo. Then Greygoose suggested adding in some T3 to make me feel better. What is odd is that the NHS results from a blood test from 2 weeks ago showed T3 below range.