Please help - Thyroid?

[Beckyrowe81]

Hi, my TPO antibodies have come back high. 3 months ago they were 95.2 and now they are 100.7. I have problems sleeping, palpitations, breathlessness, weight gain, hyper pigmentation on my face, tiredness... BUT my TSH levels are normal, as is everything else, including my cortisol. The GP hasn't tested for T4 but I'm not sure if that would show up anything if my TSH is normal? Can having high TPO antibodies make you feel ill without your TSH being abnormal?

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Yes it an and just test TSH is inadequate

For full Thyroid evaluation you need TSH, FT4 and FT3 tested. Also EXTREMELY important to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12

Low vitamin levels are extremely common, especially as you have autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's) diagnosed by raised Thyroid antibodies

Ask GP to test vitamin levels and coeliac blood test too

Come back with new post once you get results

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)

Private tests are available as NHS currently rarely tests Ft3 or thyroid antibodies or all relevant vitamins

List of private testing options

thyroiduk.org/getting-a-dia...

Medichecks Thyroid plus ultra vitamin

medichecks.com/products/thy...

Medichecks often have special offers, if order on Thursdays

Thriva Thyroid plus vitamins

thriva.co/tests/thyroid-test

Blue Horizon Thyroid Premium Gold includes vitamins

bluehorizonbloodtests.co.uk...

[fuchsia-pink]

TSH measures what your pituitary is doing. It isn't a thyroid hormone and so doesn't measure what your thyroid is doing. Also "in range" and "normal" are woolly, dangerous words. It's where you are in the range that matters. For example, the "usual" TSH range tops out above 4 [lab ranges vary from lab to lab, but 4.2 is common]. To be well, you don't really need it above 2 (and many of us hypos need it less than 1). Most countries treat you when it gets to 3 (ie still comfortably in range) although the UK often makes you wait until it gets to 10 - at which point you would be seriously unwell (and your TSH would be more than DOUBLE the top of the range).

Even testing free T4 (the inactive thyroid hormone) isn't really enough. You need to test free T3 too (the active thyroid hormone, needed in every cell in your body) - at the same time as T4, as some people don't convert very well, so a nice high free T4 results could still leave them with a low free T3 result, and hence feeling pretty ill.

Your symptoms and antibodies indicate you are likely to be hypo. Please take control of your health and do the tests SlowDragon suggests x