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)
If/when also on T3, or NDT make sure to take last third or quarter of daily dose 8-12 hours prior to test, even if this means adjusting time or splitting of dose day before test
Is this how you do your tests?
What vitamin supplements are you currently taking
Are you on strictly gluten free diet or dairy free diet
Your t3 might be a little bit too high. T3 and T4 should be about ideally 75% up through the range so you may be slightly over medicated on t3. Can make you feel unwell. Also if you’re on levo etc try NDT. Agrees with me much better than the systematic stuff from the NHS.
Oh ok. Well in that case. If my Free T3 goes above 3.0 I feel exact same symptoms. And if my free T4 goes above 1.00 I’m the same. I lived for 15 years with a hyper functioning nodule that kept me in a hyper state. I remember when I had too much thyroid flooding my system one of my biggest symptoms was my ears would ring sooo bad. My muscles ended up getting so weak I couldn’t climb stairs or lift my arms to brush my hair. I couldn’t drive becaUse of the dizziness and couldn’t eat because of the nausea. After I had my thyroid killed by an ablation I now am forever hypothyroid and depend on thyroid replacement. I used to think that taking more meds and getting my frees up higher would make me feel better but as always the dreaded symptoms of hyper would come back. I have been living this hypo roller coaster for almost 10 years now. If I take 100 mcg a day I’m running to the bathroom 10 times a day I get sooo weak and ache like a bad case of flu. I then lower my dose to 88 mcg and all clears up. I also know that my dose is too much for me if I start noticing the sound of people chewing. Always accurate for me. The reason your ears ring when flooded with thyroid is because are nerves get overstimulated when too much thyroid is in the blood and your inner ear nerves respond by malfunctioning and causing a ringing sound and dizziness.
Thanks JaclynB. Those do sound similar to my symptoms. Sometimes I feel like I am bouncing between hypo and hyper symptoms and can't find optimal. When you say "free T3 goes above 3.0" and "free T4 goes above 1.00", what are your reference ranges?
Free T3 (2.6-4.8) Free T4 (0.8-1.8) Those are the lab ranges. I have learned over the years that everyone has their own range they feel best at regardless of the ranges. I know that most people would say that if my free t3 gets above 3.00 isn’t hyper according to the ranges but to my body it is. I tried Armour thyroid one time and my symptoms escalated so bad because natural desiccated thyroid has 10 times more t3 than humans naturally need. So because of that when I took it it made me so bedridden I thought I would die. Instant hyperthyroid symptoms for me. Some do well on it but others don’t. And yes I get both hyper and hypo symptoms too. Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell except when my ears ring and I get dizzy then I know I’m overmedicated.
At FT3 of 3.0 and FT4 of 1 you're at 20% of reference range for FT4 and 18.2% for T3. At levels that low, I would be incredibly underdosed and have a lot of hypo symptoms. Just goes to show how individual we all are.
I would like to know whether my iron level is low enough to be causing problems.
Your iron could be contributing as well. I always have low iron. That’s probably why I can’t handle getting my levels up. What symptoms did you have when you are hypo?
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.