Suppressed tsh and feeling better

[DDOA]

I Did RAI on my thyroid about 15 years ago. Why do I feel better with a close to suppressed tsh and the higher side of t-3?

[greygoose]

How you feel has nothing to do with the TSH. It's T3, the active hormone that can cause symptoms if it's too high or too low. When your FT3 is high, it will naturally follow that the TSH is low.

TSH - Thyroid Stimulating Hormone - is a pituitary hormone. When the pituitary senses that there is not enough thyroid hormone in the blood, it raises its secretion of TSH. The pituitary, of course, does not know that you no-longer have a thyroid, it is just a mechanical/chemical reaction. As the levels of T4/T3 rise, the pituitary will cut back on its production of TSH. Being hypo/having no thyroid will more than likely mean that you need more hormone than a euthyroid (normal) person, meaning that your FT3 will have to be high to make you well. Which, in turn, will mean that the pituitary no-longer senses any need to produce TSH, and therefore your TSH becomes, what we call, suppressed. It is suppressed because we no-longer need it.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Probably that’s how the majority of thyroid patients would feel better......if only their medics would grasp this doesn’t mean patient is over treated

[pennyannie]

Hello DDOA

I read that you are taking Natural Desiccated Thyroid in the form of Armour.

The blood tests you refer to were designed to be used for the synthetic T3 and T4 that came to market in the 1960's with the advent of big business and Big Pharma.

NDT was the treatment used successfully for over 100 years and patients would be given a little piece of pig thyroid to chew on and digest. If symptoms continued a larger piece of thyroid would be suggested, so forth and so on until the patient's symptoms were relieved. There were no blood tests, graphs or boxes to tick, the patient was believed and the dose titrated until symptoms were alleviated.

Having had RAI myself for Graves Disease my blood tests when on just synthetic T4 were never balanced and my TSH had to be suppressed if I were to feel reasonable with my T4 going over range.

If with Graves disease we are known to have an unreliable TSH reading due to our TSI/TRab antibodies being attached to the TSH receptors giving a false low reading. We may ' look ' suppressed and overmedicated but in fact the opposite is more likely to be the case.

Your TSH is isolation means nothing, since after RAI your feedback loop is broken, and you need to be dosed and monitored on your symptoms - T3 and T4 readings will be different to those as when on synthetic thyroid hormone replacements.

My T3 runs much higher, my T4 much lower now that I've switched to NDT - I have no signs of over medication. Overall I am much better and my health much improved, but it is a slow build and depends on how long you have been unwell and under medicated.

P.S.

Taking any form of T3 will lower a TSH : personally, I've given up looking for mine - it's of little or no value after RAI thyroid ablation and if your doctor believes in the TSH reading I'd start rethinking your relationship.

[DDOA in reply to pennyannie]

I can’t thank you enough. I’m in the US and it’s not easy finding people that understand. Doctors are open minded to a point and then they start thinking you are crazy. I’m not! I feel great when my meds are doses properly. For some reason, every few years my medication needs to be raised just a tad... she had given me cytomel and I think that could be lowered some. My t3 did come back alittle on the higher side. I asked her if we could raise my Armour just alittle and decrease my cytomel by 5 mg.

Thank you again so much for all of the info

[pennyannie in reply to DDOA]

Hey there,

Thought you must be in the States to be getting the option of NDT and it appears now T3 lucky you !!

In the UK - Levothyroxine T4 only is the one and only treatment option easily obtainable on our National Health Service.

NDT is a fixed ratio of T3 /T4 and although this works for many I do read of people adjusting with either a little extra T3 or T4.

It's a fine balance and no doubt as time goes by, for various reasons, an adjustment may need to b considered.

If with Graves you might like to look at the Elaine Moore graves Disease Foundation - it's stateside and has an open forum much like this amazing website.

[shaws Administrator in reply to DDOA]

The following links might be helpful. Unfortunately for us, Dr Lowe died through an accident. He'd never prescribe levo - only NDT or T3 for his patients who were 'resistant'.

naturalthyroidsolutions.com...

Dr Lowe only took one blood test for the initial diagnosis as well as the clinical symptoms alone and small increases until all symptoms were relieved.