I had RAI last year as diagnosed as hyper I am now hypo and taking 100mg Levothyroxine. My TSH level in January was 1.82 and in July was 0.08. I don't have T4 or T3 readings for January but in July had the results below :-
My GP says that all is normal and no further action is needed. However for the last few months I have been feeling very tired, constipated and having stomach cramps. I had a colonoscopy last week as i did a FIT sample and it came back as positive so I am currently waiting for the reults of this. I am wondering if anyone else who has had RAI treatment has had trouble this way as well and what their experiences are ?
Do my levels look ok or should they be higher/lower ? My TSH has never been this low before, does it matter ? Would I benefit from taking additional T3, I keep hearing about it ? It is all very confusing.
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Confide55
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For full Thyroid evaluation you need TSH, FT4 and FT3 plus tested. Also EXTREMELY important to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12
Low vitamin levels are extremely common on just levothyroxine
Ask GP to test vitamin D, folate and B12 levels
Ferritin is getting on low side
Never supplement iron without doing full iron panel test for anaemia first
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.
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)
Don't worry about your TSH - it's the thyroid hormones themselves that matter.
The last blood tests show your free T4 66% through range and your free T3 slightly lower at 45%. You would probably feel better with higher T3 - but it's very difficult to get on the NHS and your conversion isn't truly awful ... Can you try and get an extra 25 mcg of levo? There's plenty of room before that goes over-range and it should boost your T3 a bit.
And boosting any nutrients that are under-par will definitely help too
My tsh is 0.03 and has been around that since RAI 20 years ago, the only time it went up to 17 was when I was bullied into reducing my Levo dose, soon increased it again !
Your ferritin (iron stores) is only about 12% of the way through the range. Many people feel best when ferritin is about 50% of the way through the range.
You could try to increase your iron with food, and this site is helpful in that respect :
If you want to take iron supplements then it is much safer to have an iron panel done first. It isn't a good idea to supplement iron just on the basis of a ferritin result. See this link for a discussion on that :
To get an iron panel done you could ask your doctor - but doctors rarely agree in someone with a ferritin level which is in range. The other alternative is to test privately (no need to see a doctor or get permission from one) using finger-prick testing.
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