I have felt ill for a long time now with fatigue mainly. I am a 29 year old female. I am just so fed up and lost at where to turn, but thyroid problems keep coming up whenever I google my symptoms so I just wondered if anyone could give some advice. My symptoms are extreme fatigue, especially after work or exercise (I've had to stop doing any vigorous exercise because I feel so bad for about 3 days afterwards). I also get a lot of headaches and aches in my joints and muscles.
I have had two blood tests over the past few years and nothing has come back as abnormal, apart from my vitamin d which I took a course of high dose d3 for.
My first thyroid test results (april 2017) were:
serum free T4- 11.4 pmol/L
Serum TSH level - 2.4 mu/L
Then 2 years later in Jan 2019:
Serum free t4- 13.6 pmol/L
Serum TSH level- 2.5 mu/L
Sorry for the rambling post, I just don't know where to go from here because the doctor just seems to think it is just stress but I'm comparatively a lot less stressed than I used to be and I try to exercise and eat healthily but just seem to be feeling worse and worse.
Thanks for any advice
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Ece1990
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Unfortunately, we can't interpret results without the reference ranges from the lab that did the tests, ranges vary from lab to lab. If you can add the ranges we can make sense of your results.
vitamin d which I took a course of high dose d3 for.
For you to be prescribed high dose D3 then you would have Vit D deficiency.
What was your level when tested?
How much D3 were you given?
What was your level when you finished the loading doses?
Have you continued to take D3 to maintain your new level?
My guess is that your Vit D, if you didn't continue with a maintenance dose, is low again and this may be the cause of your muscle/joint aches.
For a full picture, and for members to be able to help, we really need to see:
TSH
FT4
FT3
Thyroid antibodies
Vit D
B12
Folate
Ferritin
You are unlikely to get all these tested with your GP, in which case you may wish to do what hundreds of us here do and that is a home test with one of ThyroidUK's recommended labs:
Medichecks Thyroid Check ULTRAVIT medichecks.com/thyroid-func... You can use code THYROIDUK for a 10% discount on any test not on special offer.
Both tests include the full thyroid and vitamin panel mentioned above and can be done by fingerprick test or venous blood draw at extra cost. They are basically the same test but with the following small differences:
For the fingerprick test, Blue Horizon requires 1 x microtainer of blood (0.8ml), Medichecks requires 2 x microtainers (total 1.6ml)
Blue Horizon includes Total T4 (can be useful but not essential). Medichecks doesn't include this test.
B12 - Blue Horizon does Serum B12. Medichecks does Active B12.
Serum B12 shows the total B12 in the blood. Active B12 shows what's available to be taken up by the cells. You can have a reasonable level of Serum B12 but a poor level of Active B12. (Personally, I would go for the Active B12 test.)
When doing thyroid tests, we advise:
* Book the first appointment of the morning, or with private tests at home no later than 9am. This is because TSH is highest early morning and lowers throughout the day. If we are looking for a diagnosis of hypothyroidism, or looking for an increase in dose or to avoid a reduction then we need TSH to be as high as possible.
* Fast overnight - have your evening meal/supper as normal the night before but delay breakfast on the day of the test and drink water only until after the blood draw. Eating may lower TSH, caffeine containing drinks affect TSH.
* If taking thyroid hormone replacement, leave off Levo for 24 hours before blood draw, if taking NDT or T3 then leave that off for 8-12 hours. Take your thyroid meds after the blood draw. Taking your dose too close to the blood draw will give false high results, leaving any longer gap will give false low results.
* If you take Biotin or a B Complex containing Biotin (B7), leave this off for 7 days before any blood test. This is because if Biotin is used in the testing procedure it will give false results (Medichecks definitely use Biotin, they have confirmed this and the amount of time to leave the supplement off).
These are patient to patient tips which we don't discuss with doctors or phlebotomists.
The tests you’ve had are comparable to guessing how much petrol is in a vehicle by standing at boot and walking all the way around the exterior in a counterclockwise direction.
Your tests have proven conclusively that you have a thyroid gland.
All of the other evidence you have described indicate it’s not working.
No tests exist to see how much T3 hormone is powering your cells. Everything you’ve describing can easily be linked to underpowered metabolism due to insufficient T3 — failure of the thyroid.
Testing:
FT3 will show what’s circulating in your plasma, not what’s reaching cells, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
rT3 will indicate conversion disorder, if it’s overt. This is how I discovered that I couldn’t take levothyroxine. But I had to suffer through taking it for seven months, until even the endocrinologist was alarmed I was dying.
SHBG indicates how certain tissues are receiving T3, but it’s not particularly informative in quantifying unmet needs.
Antibody tests get about 90% of autoimmune thyroid gland self-destruction. If you’re like me, and produce the oddball antibodies, the conventional tests will show no antibodies, but the gland has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
There are many physical indicators of hypothyroidism that an endocrinologist can see upon simple examination of your hands, head, and reflexes. This is the most conclusive.
The ranges for thyroid tests were 9.00 to 24.00 pmol/L for the free T4, and serum TSH was 0.20 to 5.00mu/L. So with my blood tests I came back as normal (T4 13.6 and TSH 2.5).
Yes they told me I had vit D deficiency, so I took the 20,000 iu tablets every day for a week I think and then I have been taking 20,000 every 2 weeks as maintenance since, although probably missing some doses.
Thank you for the information about the tests, I've already ordered the "thyroid check plus" off of medichecks. I probably should have just waited to get the results from that before posting but I just felt so upset with it all today.
Reallyfedup123, the only illnesses I can think of are asthma, heart problems, and cancer. I don't know of anyone having hypothyroid but could be.
Rockypath, thank you for the detailed info and your analogies did make me smile. Hopefully when I get the medicheck results back they were prove to be more helpful.
Forgot to add, my latest results for these were:
B12 1012 ng/L (range 197 - 1999.00ng/L)
Folate 11.2 ug/L (range 3.90 -20.00 ug/L)
Ferritin 24 ug/L (13.00 - 150.00 ug/L)
I am aware that ferritin is quite low but when i take ferrous sulphate tablets i get bad stomach pain and diarrhoea.
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