Hi, can anybody help make sense of my nana results. Her t4 is 21.1 range (7.7-20.6) her t3 is 4 range (4.3-6.9) tsh 0.85 range 0.30-4.80).

[alpeec]

High t4 low t3

[alpeec]

She has been on 75mg of levothyroxine for years due to under active thyroid. Would these results suggest hyper? She has lost a lot of weight and is struggling to breath and swallow but we are at a loss as doctors say nothing is causing this.

[jimh111]

These results would not indicate hyper. With a low fT3 she could even be hypo but I wouldn't jump to that assumption.

Weight loss should be investigated. They should have checked her thyroid for a goitre as this could affect breathing and swallowing. Make sure her thyroid gland has been properly checked, including perhaps an ultrasound. If that is OK they should check she doesn't have anything sinister going on. Please note I'm not a doctor.

[fuchsia-pink]

I'd say she is a very "poor converter". The levo she takes boosts her free T4, the inactive thyroid hormone, which converts into free T3, the active thyroid hormone needed in every cell of her body. On the basis of these rsults, she converts the free T4 into free T3 very, very badly [for most people you are roughly in balance as a percentage through range; I'm bad, but not that bad!)

The solution is to be given T3 medication - liothyronine - but it's not that easy to get.

Lio can only be prescribed by an endo in the UK - so you need a referral from the GP to start with - but not many endos will prescribe it, because it's very expensive, and has a short "half life" so is difficult to measure - and lots of them just don't believe it does any good [I think they think that the many thousands of people, like me, that it has helped enormously are suffering from some strange delusion.]

If you email Dionne at Thyroid UK - tukadmin@thyroiduk, org - she will send you a list of T3-friendly endos; it's also worth setting up a new post asking if anyone can recommend someone near-ish to where she lives. She doesn't have to see the nearest person, but must obv be reasonably convenient. She will need to show she is a "poor converter" - which these results certainly do!

Good luck x

[humanbean]

Your grandmother is not remotely hyperthyroid. Her below range Free T3 will be responsible for some of her problems and she may have low nutrients as well. If possible get your grandmother's nutrient levels tested. The ones usually of interest on this forum are :

Vitamin B12

Folate

Vitamin D

Ferritin (iron stores)

serum iron (if possible)

Low iron and/or low ferritin can make people very breathless, as can low B12. The problems with swallowing could suggest that her thyroid is swollen.

What would help in a sane world is some Free T3 to add to a slightly reduced amount of Levo. But sanity in thyroid treatment of the elderly is in very short supply.

For private testing options if your grandmother's doctor won't test her :

thyroiduk.org/

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