I'm really grateful for this forum and appreciate all the generous advice and support.
I want ask if there is any female who had RAI at a younger age and went on to have children afterward. I'm curious because I have marriage and children in my future plans and it would be nice to hear experiences with pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum while being hypothyroid. Was there any side effect of the medications on the child? I'll appreciate any alerts to a patient with such experience.
Thanks.
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Ellelove_postRAIgirl
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Not a lot, but I do know that women are told their TSH should be under 2.5, which is stupid, because it has nothing to do with the TSH. The important number in pregnancy is the FT4, because it is T4 that passes the blood/placenta barrier. And, with a TSH of over 2, the FT4 could be quite low.
That is not to say that the FT3 is unimportant, because it is the T3 that keeps the mother fit and and healthy. And being pregnant is a terrific strain on the body, so you need to be as healthy as you possibly can.
Apart from that, I can't add much to humanbean excellent reply below. And I know nothing about RAI and its possible effects, so I can't really say anything that is of any help to the OP, I'm afraid. Sorry.
But the original poster, Ellelove_postRAIgirl, has had Radioactive Iodine treatment - which will have destroyed most or all her thyroid. That is why she is asking about hypothyroidism.
I don't know anything about the effects of RAI done years ago on fertility, pregnancy and/or the effects on a fetus.
What I would say though is that anyone with hypothyroidism from any cause should prepare for getting pregnant before they try to get pregnant. They should do this by doing all the things that get mentioned as being advisable for people who are hypothyroid to make themselves feel as well and healthy as possible.
So, optimise nutrients - Vitamin B12, folate, vitamin D, ferritin, and preferably get an iron panel done too.
Optimise thyroid hormones i.e. Free T4 and Free T3. If you take T3 don't let doctors or obstetricians scare you off of taking T3. They threaten all sorts of awful consequences of taking T3 and accuse mothers-to-be of killing their babies. The pressure is really high on women who take T3 and it is just sadistic.
Bear in mind that pregnant hypothyroid women had no choice but to take NDT for decades (because it was the only treatment there was) before Levothyroxine became the standard of care. And I'm not aware of any research that say NDT (which contains T3) was deadly to fetuses or mothers-to-be. Women still got pregnant and had babies despite taking NDT.
After optimising thyroid hormones if you still don't feel well consider getting cortisol tested - but leave it until thyroid hormones and nutrients are at good levels.
I have just posted some research which appears to support the idea that T3 can and does cross the placenta. Something that has been dismissed all too often.
The frequent references we find from the medical profession to T3 not crossing the placenta all fail the logic test in my opinion.
1) For a start, every other cell in the human body needs and uses T3 in its lifetime, and not having enough is catastrophic to health in so many ways. Why would humans evolve in such a way as to avoid using it in pregnancy, given that the fetus has to be able to use it throughout life?
2) Ordinary healthy women with healthy thyroids have T3 in their bloodstream 100% of the time they are pregnant. Why would the placenta have evolved equipment to remove that T3 from the mother's blood? It's a pointless and energy wasting exercise.
3) NDT was the first successful treatment for hypothyroidism. It contains T3. There are no reports that I've ever come across of all hypothyroid women being permanently infertile or miscarrying in every pregnancy.
4) There is a case report of a woman taking T3 only throughout pregnancy and she had two perfectly healthy babies in separate pregnancies. I very much doubt that the mother was a type of Homo Sapiens 2.0 whose offspring could use T3 during pregnancy while no others have ever existed.
It has occurred to me that during her pregnancy the mother on T3 was likely to have been abused and insulted, and no doubt heard that she was killing her babies many times, because the medical profession likes doing that kind of thing, and they don't trust women.
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