Just writing on behalf of my daughter (I’m hypothyroid).
I am sure she is displaying symptoms she’s 30, weight gain, tired but in an exhausted way, dry skin, rosacea and lots of other symptoms I recognise as been linked. A blood test a year ago her TSH was 3.2 and GP felt no treatment indicated - she’s continued on but the gradual decline or lack of improvement made me urge her to go back.
After she could have sleep apnoea (she doesn’t 🙄) they agreed to retest. I suggested early morning blood test but as a teacher she’d normally struggle so the Easter school holidays were ideal. The practice said they had no appointments and evening appointments were for people who work. She explained a morning test was more beneficial and was the comment from receptionist was ‘I’ve never heard that before’.... no appointment available.
In desperation she’s ordered a private test, I feel her borderline level and family history are strong indicators but not hopeful that GP will take it seriously. Question is is there anything official to produce to suggest an early morning fasting TSH is beneficial.
Just another indicator of how the system seems to work against rather than for thyroid patients 😕
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For full Thyroid evaluation your daughter needs TSH, FT4 and FT3 plus both TPO and TG thyroid antibodies tested. Also extremely important to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12
Low vitamin levels are extremely common, especially if Thyroid antibodies are raised
Yes ..... Recommended on here that all thyroid blood tests should ideally be done as early as possible in morning and fasting. This gives highest TSH, lowest FT4 and most consistent results. (Patient to patient tip, best not mentioned to GP or phlebotomist)
As far as I know there is nothing official about timing of thyroid tests, everything that is recommend here about how to do thyroid function tests is "patient to patient tips which we don't discuss with doctors or phlebotomists" (let alone receptionists!). However, one of our Admin's endocrinologist actually tells her to do her tests exactly as we advice:
* early morning appointment
* fast overnight, drink only water before the blood draw, breakfast and any other drinks after the test
* if taking thyroid replacement hormone then leave off Levo for 24 hours and T3 for 8-12 hours.
Hopefully the private test ordered is the full thyroid and vitamin panel, eg. Medichecks Thyroid Check ULTRAVIT or Blue Horizon Thyroid Check PLUS ELEVEN, they give the full picture.
I have heard that waking yourself up at three am ish can cause a spike later in the morning. Long term I wonder what the plans are but I suppose wait for the blood tests first. I would however be inclined to be looking at blood results as information to self treat as well, as persuading a dr might not be viable.
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