Hi all, I've just got my test results back and wondered if someone could tell me if they're ok. I'm taking 125mcg levothyroxine but i'm feeling really tired in fact exhausted all the time.
TSH 0.25mU/L (0.30-4.20mU/L)
T3 3.2pmol/L (2.6-5.7pmol/L)
T4 14.0pmol/L (9.0-19.0pmol/L)
Vit D 60nmol (50-250nmol)
B12 679ng/L (180-900ng/L)
Iron 13.2micromol/L (11-30micromol/L)
Folate 8.5microg/L (3.0-20.0microg/L)
Ferritin 12.9UG/L (10-200UG/L)
Serum Transferrin 3.62g/L (1.8-3.6g/L)
I've noticed some other results which say abnormal, platelet count, plasma corrected calcium level and plasma creatine level but i don't know what these are.
Thanks in advance for any help and advice.
Written by
catpurple7
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I'd say these show you are under-medicated. Your free T4 is exactly half-way through range but your free T3 is lagging at less than 20%. Hopefully your GP won't concentrate on suppressed TSH and try and reduce your meds. Can you see if you can get another 25 mcg, to try and make you better? - most of us need free T4 and free T3 to be in the top third - and often the top quartile - of the reference range to feel well.
At the same time, your vit D and ferritin look too low to me and folate could do with being a bit higher too - but I'll defer to SeasideSusie and SlowDragon who know far more about nutrients than me.
SeasideSusie or humanbean are the members who know most about iron and ferritin ...Hopefully might pop along to comment
At very least you need to look at increasing iron rich foods in your diet. But may need iron supplements
Eating iron rich foods like liver or liver pate once a week plus other red meat, pumpkin seeds and dark chocolate, plus daily orange juice or other vitamin C rich drink can help improve iron absorption
This is interesting because I have noticed that many patients with Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism, start to feel worse when their ferritin drops below 80 and usually there is hair loss when it drops below 50.
I'm not taking any supplements at the moment, i sometimes take b12 , vit D and iron but i always worry that i'll take too much as i don't know what dose i should be taking and should i take it everyday.
The present review of the literature regarding B12 status among vegetarians shows that the rates of B12 depletion and deficiency are high. It is, therefore, recommended that health professionals alert vegetarians about the risk of developing subnormal B12 status. Vegetarians should also take preventive measures to ensure adequate intake of this vitamin, including the regular intake of B12 supplements to prevent deficiency. Considering the low absorption rate of B12 from supplements, a dose of at least 250 μg should be ingested for the best results.3
Likely to need iron supplements as vegan diet is low in iron
Suggest you get both TPO and TG thyroid antibodies tested to see if cause of your hypothyroidism is autoimmune thyroid disease (hashimoto’s)
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 .
Last dose of Levothyroxine 24 hours prior to blood test. (taking delayed dose immediately after blood draw).
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?
Your results suggest you are under medicated and poor conversion
Email Dionne at Thyroid UK for list of recommend thyroid specialist endocrinologists who will prescribe T3 .....NHS and Private
tukadmin@thyroiduk.org
But before considering adding T3 you need to get vitamins optimal, especially ferritin
I suspect you would do best to ask your doctors to give you an iron transfusion. But, in these penny-pinching days, since your iron and ferritin are still in range (although only just) I suspect they might tell you to get lost and the best you could hope for is iron supplements. But I seriously think you should at least ask.
Your serum transferrin being over the range is a result which, along with the low-in-range iron and ferritin, suggests that you are probably suffering from iron-deficiency anaemia. This would be proven if you had a below-range haemoglobin.
There are lots of different kinds of iron supplements. helvella wrote a useful summary on the different types here :
The easiest and cheapest iron supplements to get hold of are the iron salts - ferrous fumarate and ferrous sulfate. More people tolerate ferrous fumarate than ferrous sulfate (I think), but lots of people struggle with iron supplements of any kind.
The easiest way to tolerate them is with food.
I take ferrous fumarate 210mg and buy it from pharmacies without prescription. Theoretically, selling prescription-strength iron supplements is up to the discretion of pharmacists, but they rarely refuse. It happened to me once in Boots and I just went to a different chain. I've had no problems getting them from Tesco Pharmacies and Lloyds Pharmacies. You could show a pharmacist this picture :
According to the British National Formulary (BNF), which is what doctors use to decide what options they have for prescribing and what dose is necessary, the normal dose for ferrous fumarate 210mg is :
Note that pharmacies may offer you a different brand to the one in the picture I linked. This is okay. Brand isn't important.
If you don't do well with ferrous fumarate 210mg then there are other options mentioned in helvella's document linked above and you'd have to research the ones that interested you. But whichever supplement you end up with you really need to get more iron into your diet.
...
If you do start iron supplements - and I really think you should - you will need to be sure that you test iron/ferritin levels fairly regularly e.g. about every two months until you have some idea how well you are absorbing it, and then adjust your testing frequency accordingly. People differ tremendously in how fast they absorb iron and it is very important to know if and when you have got your levels closer to optimal.
I've noticed some other results which say abnormal, platelet count, plasma corrected calcium level and plasma creatine level but i don't know what these are.
Platelet count is something you'd find in a Full Blood Count. For more info on what the results mean, click on all the + signs (apart from the first one) in this link :
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