Endo appointment tomorrow.

[Mickeydooley]

I’ve been on T3 trial now for 6 weeks and have an endo review appointment tomorrow. I’ve had an extremely stressful six weeks and not actually sure how I’ve been managing. I’ve been very anxious, depressed, exhausted and not sleeping but no idea if it’s all to do with my situation rather than meds. I’ll no doubt have bloods taken after my 2pm appointment. I have adjusted my thyroxine and t3 timings (24 and 12 hours prior to testing) but I’m not sure what to do about fasting. How much time before testing can I have some food? I was planning to have a small breakfast around 6am and then fast until after the tests. (Nothing I can do about appointment time as clinic only works in afternoon).

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Fasting is advised because eating can affect TSH result, it's said it can lower it. TSH is also lower later in the day. Fasting doesn't affect FT4 and FT3 result.

So it depends whether your TSH result is going to be the reason for any dose change. If your endo doses by TSH rather than hormone levels (FT4 and FT3) then the timing of your blood test will very likely give a lower TSH than an early, fasting test and may possibly result in a dose reduction.

[Mickeydooley in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks for the quick reply. I’m not sure if the endo will reduce based on TSH but he did tell me last time that low TSH was associated with osteoporosis. Maybe I’ll eat a small breakfast and then fast until after. Doesn’t seem like it’ll make much difference at that time of day.

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Mickeydooley]

To be honest, your TSH is likely to be low anyway because taking T3 tends to lower, even suppress TSH, so I doubt whether having something to eat will make much difference. If your endo is prescribing TSH then he really ought to know that it lowers TSH and that the only important result when taking T3 is the FT3.

[Mickeydooley in reply to SeasideSusie]

Great! I’ll see what happens. Thank you

[HashiFedUp]

T3 can make you feel all those things - agitated and insomnia are very common. The endo will probably let the dose settle and the side effects should reduce. Good luck.

[Mickeydooley in reply to HashiFedUp]

Thanks. I’ve had 6 weeks of extreme stress and he lowered my T4 last time and gave me 10mcg of t3. Can’t tell how it’s been working given my circumstances. We’ll see what the latest bloods indicate. He refuses to test my TG antibodies which are high and is focussing on TPOab. I’d love to know how the TG ones are doing but will have to resort to private testing again.