Long Covid - Is this Thyroid-Related?

[penny]

I keep reading about the symptoms of long Covid and wondering if there is any link with thyroid malfunction as the symptoms sound familiar. (Not that I’m thyroid-obsessed.). Have any doctors tested thyroid function? On a quick search for long Covid and thyroid this is the first thing to come up

endocrineweb.com/covid-19-p...

I would welcome input.

[diogenes Remembering]

This is a paper which relates TS<FT3 and FT4 to severity of covid disease. No doubt the most severely affected will have some form of long COVID. This gives the results in the journal Thyroid. I could open it so should be downloadable

Thyroid Function Analysis in 50 Patients with COVID-19: A Retrospective Study

Min Chen, Weibin Zhou, and Weiwei Xu

Published Online:10 Jul 2020doi.org/10.1089/thy.2020.0363

Results: TSH lower than the normal range was present in 56% (28/50) of the patients with

COVID-19. The levels of TSH and serum total triiodothyronine (TT3) of the patients with COVID-19 were significantly lower than those of the healthy control group and non-COVID-19 pneumonia patients. The more severe the COVID-19, the lower the TSH and TT3 levels were, with statistical significance (p < 0.001). The degree of the decreases in TSH and TT3 levels was positively correlated with the severity of the disease. The total thyroxine (TT4) level of the patients with COVID-19 was not significantly different from the control group. All the patients did not receive thyroid hormone replacement therapy. After recovery, no significant differences in TSH, TT3, TT4, free triiodothyronine (fT3), and free thyroxine (fT4) levels were found between the COVID-19 and control groups.

I should add that COVID seems to cause a kind of thyroiditis.

[penny in reply to diogenes]

Thank you, Diogenes.

I read that as saying that the interruption of normal thyroid function is temporary. Having found the correlation I wonder why the patients were not treated with T3, perhaps it would have shortened recovery. In none of the cases I have read about online has there been mention of thyroid testing or treatment; why do you think that is, or has it just been missed off the reporting?

[diogenes Remembering in reply to penny]

Whether on T4 or not, I view COVID as setting off a severe nonthyroidal illness. This reduces T4-T3 conversion, on treatment or not. The onset of severe illness is often accompanied by lowered TSH in the range, and lower FT3/T3. I wouldn't advise giving T3, because the body is reacting to the illness by partial shutdown, mimicking a "hibernation" effect. In such circumstances it needs to lie low until the danger has passed.

[penny in reply to diogenes]

Is the body causing partial shutdown of T3 production or is the illness shutting down T3 production?

[diogenes Remembering in reply to penny]

It is a classical case of N(non)T(thyroidal)illness (I) or NTI for short. It's called allostasis of the body, where the infection has caused a major change in your "set point" for optimal hormone activity, to produce the best outcome, given the circumstances.

[penny in reply to diogenes]

Thank you, Diogenes.

[tattybogle]

My 'gut feeling ' about long covid and thyroid is that it will ultimately have no more provable/measurable connection to thyroid than CFS/ME does, and that many sufferers of long covid have actually developed a similar state of health to CFS/ME, which i tend to think is not caused by any single 'cause' but is a state of chronic poor health in which the body doesn't recover from exertion and is badly effected by any form of stress. ( The best description i ever heard of CFS/ME was 'It's like an allergy to adrenaline' )

I notice many who don't get well on Levo alone, either already have a 'diagnosis' (lol )of CFS/ME or will get one when they start saying that Levo isn't restoring them to health.

I got prescribed Levo 5 yrs before they started talking of CFS/ME ,but in reality if it hadn't been for them checking my TPO ab's at my insistence and finding >3000, i suspect i would never have been given a hypothyroid diagnosis at all and would just have been given CFS/ME (my TSH was only up to 6.8, but rising, and my TT4 was in range , but only 30% and dropping )

I find many descriptions from hypothyroid 'recovered on T3' patients which exactly mirror descriptions of CFS/ME and i'm now seeing many descriptions of long covid which fit the same pattern.

I'm afraid that those long covid sufferers who can show provable organ damage will get one sort of attention and recognition , and those who cant but still don't get better will get put in the same CFS/ME/We don't believe you/Would you like to try some counselling ? dustbin as the rest of us.

[mikey_is_alive]

covid wrecks havok on all of your systems. it drains all your vitamins, minerals, hormones. its not attacking the thyroid to then affect hormones. its just sapping the hormones and using them from the oens already in your body. this is why in the study of 50 people they shown t3 went down which is a sign the body was utilising t3(as it does) and t4 didnt show any remarkable change meaning the thyroid gland was still producing.

remember T4 is not used by the body. its produced as a pre-store of T3 for later use. so if low T4 then your body is not producing it. but high T4 means its not changing things

also after recovery T3 levels went to normal. which shows its just that your body when sick needs and uses all sorts of minerals, vitamins,hormones to try fighting the virus.

for instance having aching bones is your bone marrow being sapped out to create antibodies.

so yea expect it to drain you of all minerals/vitamins/hormones. expect to feel weak. its not going to be just a single cough then all fine.. which is why its especially important you have good supply of minerals and vitamins and nutritian and taking meds properly before your sick to be able to cope with the drain when sick.

if orange face trump who spends alot of time outdoors on campaign tours needed vitamin D means even just getting a bit of sunlight aint enough.

if your sick nutritian and fluids are important

[magsyh]

What nobody is noticing here is the obvious adrenal connection. So called long covid is the result of drained adrenals. When you are sick you need a lot of cortisol. This is why steroids are helping people. This is why they are comparing it to CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia it's all due to low adrenal function.

As many of us here know doctors on NHS will not acknowledge low adrenals unless you have Addison's. How can they be so ignorant? Of course T3 will be low. They all need low dose hydrocortisone but of course instead they give out huge doses of steroids which shut down ACTH and defeat the purpose, ignorance yet again.

[Deb_g in reply to magsyh]

I had Covid in January- had a very slow recovery - suffering fatigue etc - then - about 12 weeks later started with severe tarpel tunnel syndrome in my feet and pain in other joints- was all I could do to get out of bed.

This is compounded by the fact that I can’t get to see a GP (why?!?)

I believe Covid affected my thyroid-I’ve had numerous blood tests and physio - I’m waiting for an “urgent” appointment for endocrinology in August?! In the mean time, I’ve taken control and taken T3- the results are that my foot and joint pain are manageable