Advice on endo / thyroid specialist

[Mjpp84]

Hi all,

I have posted a few times previously and received some good advice. I am currently suffering from an underactive thyroid and taking levothyroxine - 150mg for 10 days, 125mg for 5 days based on GP advice, taken in the morning with water prior to breakfast or caffeine. Latest blood test results from 9th March showed TSH at 1.26 (range: 0.3-5.5). Following previous blood tests I am also supplementing with vitamin D from 16th Jan this year. Vitamin D result from 7th Jan was 42nmol/L (range: 50-125), now at 83 (09/03/21). I am also supplementing with Igennus Super B-Complex, one tablet per day. Vitamin supplements taken at lunch daily. I have suffered with an underactive thyroid for numerous years and my last conversation with my GP has left me disappointed like a lot of people on this group. My plan is also to do a more comprehensive blood test covering T3, T4, vitamins etc., as the GP doesn't cover all of these.

I would like to go private and see a specialist as I have seen no improvement in symptoms and cannot continue along the same path. Therefore, I would like to seek advice on the best way to find a specialist and what the process is to do this - should I be referred by the GP or seek my own specialist? Are there any recommendations on specialists in the North West of England or across the country? Any advice would be much appreciated, many thanks.

[fuchsia-pink]

First step absolutely is to get blood tests of your actual thyroid hormones, not just TSH. Post the results here and the lovely people here can help you to understand them. Just testing TSH isn't anywhere near enough ...

As regards seeing an endo - various thoughts:

* if you go private, you can see the one you want, pretty well straight away (although I don't know if it's zoom rather than face-to-face) - and you don't necessarily need a GP referral.

* if you go NHS you need to be prepared for a wait - and you will need both your GP to refer you and the endo to agree to see you. Neither is a given.

* whichever way, you need some clarity on what you want from a consultation: eg is it to increase your dose? to give you T3 meds? to talk to someone knowledgeable? to get a second opinion?

Bear in mind that HUGE numbers of endos are really diabetes specialists and don't have much specialist knowledge or interest in thyroid. Look at the thumbnail biogs of endos at hospitals near-ish to you and see how man mention thyroid.

You can get a list of private endos and of T3-friendly endos from Dionne at Thyroid UK - [e-mail] - but personally I'd say there's not much point until you know exactly what your blood results are, and either you are at the top of or over the free T4 range and still feeling rubbish; a proven poor converter, or you have a particularly obstructive GP and can't see anyone else.

But with a TSH as high as it is while on a good-ish dose of levo I can see why you feel you need more than you are currently getting - good luck x

[Mjpp84 in reply to fuchsia-pink]

Many thanks for the advice, will get some further blood tests and take things from there.