TSH. T1. T2.

[SassyMH]

I just wondered if anyone know what TSH does in you body, mine is successfully supressed , so I wondered if there's something that should happen in my body that isn't? Also we here a lot about T3 and T4, are there a T1 and T2, and if there are what do they do? I'm just trying to educate myself.

[shaws Administrator]

TSH means Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. It is from the pituitary gland and when our thyroid gland is struggling to send out hormones, it tries to help by trying to send out more by rising. When diagnosed as hypothyroid and we take thyroid hormone replacements the aim is a TSH of 1 or lower.

However, if we've sufficient thyroid hormones in our body, then the TSH doesn't need to rise and we should feel well. Unfortunately most doctors seem to be confused about the TSH and its purpose. Mind you they also seem to be confused about everything 'thyroid' and only rely upon the TSH instead of also testing Free T4 and Free T3.

Levothyroxine (T4) is an inactive hormone, it has to convert to liothyronine (T3) and it is T3 which is the Active Hormone and is needed in the millions of T3 receptor cells. That's why we don't feel so good if both FT3 and FT4 aren't optimum.

If someone takes a Natural Dessicated Thyroid Hormones it contains, T4, T3, T2, T1 (the latter two are negligible) as it is made from animals' thyroid glands and many find this helpful.

If we add, for instance T3, or take NDT the blood tests wont correlate as they were introduced along with levothyroxine alone. The emphasis should be on how the patient feels and relief of symptoms.

p.s. I'm not medically qualified but had undiagnosed hypothyroidism and diagnosed myself eventually.

[SassyMH in reply to shaws]

Thank you for explaining so clearly.

[greygoose]

TSH stimulates the thyroid to make more hormone, and facilitates conversion of T4 to T3. So, it you are taking any form of T3, you don't need any TSH.

I think the general consensus is that T2 and T1 don't do anything much. T3 and rT3 are converted to T2, and T2 to T1, and the iodine atoms thus released are recycled. It would appear that T2 and T1 are just steps in the recycling of the raw materials the hormone is made of.

It's highly unlikely that NDT contains any T2 and T1 because the thyroid makes only tiny quantities, if any at all. It probably all comes from conversion. Which is another reason for suspecting that they don't do very much, if anything at all.

[SassyMH in reply to greygoose]

Thank you for explainatio

[greygoose in reply to SassyMH]

You're welcome.