Thyroid results, advice please ☺️

[mistygrey]

Hi all,

Hope you are well as can be. Can anybody help with my recent thyroid panel, bloods taken fasted and 12 hours away from any thyroid medications.

TSH: 0.22 (range 0.2-4.5)

FT3: 4.4 (range 2.5-4.5)

FT4: 15 (range 9-21)

Seen my Endo on Friday, she said I should try and up my T3 to 10mcg, currently I take 88mcg T4 and 5mcg T3 around 3pm. Endo suggested 75mcg T4 and 5mcg T3 morning and 5mcg T3 around 4pm. So lowering T4 slightly to increase the T3.

Would my results suggest this is a good idea? I am still feeling very sluggish particularly in mornings hence the Endo thinking this dose change may help, also just been diagnosed with sjogrens disease.

Thanks ☺️

[HughH]

T3 is the active thyroid hormone which controls the metabolism and therefore the symptoms. Your Free T3 is right at the top part of the normal range, which is good, so you should not have hypothyroid symptoms.

Your lower in range Free T4 in conjunction with good Free T3 shows that you are converting T4 to T3 well. With your good Free T3 the TSH would normally be near zero but your TSH could indicate that your body wants a higher Free T3.

As you are still having what appear to be hypothyroid symptoms, one possible cause is a genetic condition: Impaired Sensitivity to Thyroid Hormone (more often known as Thyroid Hormone Resistance). It causes hypothyroid symptoms and requires very high T3 levels (often above the top of the normal range) in the body to overcome the resistance.

As it is genetic if there are other family members with thyroid problems, fibromyalgia, CFS, ME, Coeliac Disease, MS, Heart Disease or depression this would further support this possibility. Even if you cannot identify any family history of this it is still possible that you have this condition.

[mistygrey in reply to HughH]

Thanks Hugh very interesting.

Do you think this means I may benefit from a slight increase in t3 like my Endo has suggested? Or will that lower my T4 levels further?

[mistygrey in reply to mistygrey]

I also suffer from chronic fatigue style exhaustion due to Sjogrens disease that I also have

[HughH in reply to mistygrey]

T4 is a thyroid hormone but is not an active hormone, it needs to be converted to T3 to become active. T4 therefore does not cause symptoms.

It is worth trying the increase in T3 but you may actually need a much larger amount.