Thyroid Antibodies

[Bearski]

Good morning. Yet another useless Endo appointment where he tells me there is nothing wrong with me and that all my symptoms are ‘unexplained’. He didn’t even look at my private blood tests and had made his mind up about me before I had walked in the room.

I showed him that my TG antibodies were 256 which is well above the top of the range (115) but he said I do not have Hashimoto’s because my TPO antibodies are in range. Is this true? Thanks for your help.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

That’s what NHS currently believes,.....rest of the world accepts high TG antibodies may be indicative of Hashimoto’s

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/303...

healthline.com/health/antit...

Man6 Hashimoto’s patients only have high TG antibodies and frequently struggle to get diagnosed

Have you ever had ultrasound scan of your thyroid

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Post from 2 years ago

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

Your Ft3 was extremely low

Low Ft3 linked to low vitamin levels

Essential to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12

Have you had these tested?

That’s your first step

For full Thyroid evaluation you need 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 you have autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's) diagnosed by raised Thyroid antibodies

Ask GP to test vitamin levels or test via GP

Recommended on here that all thyroid blood tests should ideally be done as early as possible in morning and before eating or drinking anything other than water .

This gives highest TSH, lowest FT4 and most consistent results. (Patient to patient tip, best not mentioned to GP or phlebotomist)

Is this how you do your tests?

Private tests are available. Thousands on here forced to do this as NHS often refuses to test FT3 or antibodies

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin...

For thyroid including antibodies and vitamins

Medichecks Thyroid plus ultra vitamin or Blue Horizon Thyroid plus eleven are the most popular choice. DIY finger prick test or option to pay extra for private blood draw. Both companies often have special offers, Medichecks usually have offers on Thursdays, Blue Horizon its more random

[Bearski in reply to SlowDragon]

Thank you, I do remember that post. My TG antibodies have more than doubled since then and I'm just getting nowhere. The Endo I saw recently was private, he was on the good Dr list on a facebook group that I'm in. He was utterly horrible, he made me cry. And even thought he could see I was getting more and more distressed he continued to be rude to me eventually telling me I just needed counselling. He even asked me what the 'scars' were on my stomach, they were just the marks where my jeans had been. Bit of a giveaway really! I've got his bill sat on my desk and I'm not paying it.

[Bearski in reply to Bearski]

sorry I forgot to mention, he also told me to stop reading things online as it's not written by Doctors so is all a load of rubbish. I told him that a previous Dr (who since retired) had told me to take NDT but this Endo said I need to stop taking it as it will give me a heart attack and osteoporosis.

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Bearski]

So if you are taking NDT you need to get full thyroid and vitamin testing at least annually, ideally twice year

[Bearski in reply to SlowDragon]

Thank you, I have been doing that but everything is all over the place. Since my last Dr retired I stopped taking it for a while and all my symptoms have got worse so I went back on it. I'm trying to follow the advise online regarding dose but not sure I'm making the best job of it so I though a new Endo would finally help me. I gave him all the info from the Thyroid UK page too but it didn't do any good with him. Just feel like I'm banging my head against a wall. My RT3 is also quite high, top of the range, my Iron was high so I went to give blood but was told I couldn't because my Haemoglobin was too low so I read about Anemia of Inflammation but the Endo said that was also rubbish but he gave me no explanation for anything. I just can't seem to get my ducks in a row! I think perhaps I just need to start from scratch?

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Bearski]

High ferritin can be due to MTHFR

stopthethyroidmadness.com/h...

Start new post with recent test results including vitamins and members can advise

[Sweeneythyca in reply to SlowDragon]

Mthfr causes low ferritin, high iron.

I have a variant of mthfr

Extract from cited article

[Thus, if your MTHFR gene has a mutation and that mutation is now expressing itself, your labs can look like this: higher than optimal serum iron and % saturation, a low ferritin….and a higher in the range TIBC]

[Bearski in reply to Sweeneythyca]

Thank you Sweeneythyca. All my iron is high, top of the range or over except the UIBC. The results mention something about haemochromatosis which I don't know what is so I'm reading up on it?

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Bearski]

irondisorders.org/Websites/...

[greygoose in reply to Bearski]

Don't worry about the rT3. It's not even worth testing for, because it only tells you if it's high, not why. And, there are many, many reasons for high rT3. And, unless your FT4 is very high, it has nothing to do with thyroid.

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to Bearski]

So a journal is OK is you read it in the library but not if you read it online? And he is correct that many articles in journals are written by researchers and ghost writers, not medical doctors - but I bet he still gets his information from the same sources.Obviously channelling Doc Martin

[Bearski]

I've not had an ultrasound done but I will look into it thank you.

[Marz in reply to Bearski]

When people like your Endo behave badly it is usually based on fear. He is probably fearful of you discovering his shocking lack of knowledge. Hold your head high ☆☆