I met an Endocrinolgist yesterday

[Jenny583]

I had a letter out of the blue a few weeks ago 1 week after I ordered a private finger prick test from the UK MMH firm. I asked the phlebotomy dept to bring the appt with them sooner as I was keen to drop the Levothyroxine sooner rather than later, also I wanted to get a 9pm appt with them to see what my cortisol was doing. I got a call the day before for a 9am appt.

So I had breathlessness, high BP, & back pain to start with, which is why I got the MMH test last month. Then after I got the local phlebotomy test I was able to drop the levo by 12.5 mcg. I felt better after I dropped the dose. My BP was unmeasurable (too high at night for home BP monitor to record) -for days after I dropped to 112.5. Yesterday the endo could not get a recording above the max, so tried my right arm, it was still very high. At home it is around 85/ 145 since I dropped levo.

She gave me a script to take to hospital for Amlodipine, but my back pain was to bad to go to hospital, so I will have to wait till after Xmas as it's impossible to park anywhere in my island.

I told her that my dementia seems to be caused by reverse T3, but all she could see was my low TSH. Could it be that T4 is no good for me? I had much higher TSH when I took T3 only, also my TSH never recovered after severe long term graves thyrotoxicosis, but my records have been removed since I was last accused of thryotoxicosis. The endo wants me to drop to 100mcg right now, I agree with her, & have done. I hope that the dementia is as she says caused by high BP, but I don't seem to have a clue as to why the results of none thyroid serums that I got her to print out are so awry, as the thyroid hormones look optimal on both private & local tests. Could it be that I may need to go it alone with T3 only? or should I go back to privately obtained metavive & T3 + private FP tests? I have a red light/infrared lamp on order should I have to go back on metavive, which may protect my eyes from further damage, I told the endo all this, also that I dropped from 125 Levo, & that I take the last remaining pack of tiromel at 1/4 tab in order to get out of bed.

[tattybogle]

Hard to say anything very useful without seeing TFT's.

Assuming you were taking 125mcg Levo +1/4 tab T3 for 6 weeks before the tests were done. and left 24hrs from last dose Levo and 12 hrs from last dose T3 ,otherwise results won't be accurate....

What were the recent fT4 / fT3 / TSH results on that dose ?

[Jenny583 in reply to tattybogle]

Hi, I got the phone call for 'free slot' blood test day before test, so t4 was 25+ hours after last dose of t4. Took 1/4 tiromel t3 at pm & again at night before test,last dose 12 hours? so t4 only was 1 hour off. Thanks. Was on that dose for much more than 6 weeks.

(7-12-22) T3 0.02 ( 0.50 - 5.00) Free T4 22.4 ( 10.00 - 25.00) FT3 7.2 ( 4.3 - 8.1)

[tattybogle in reply to Jenny583]

out of interest.... how did fT4 / fT3 compare to your Monitor My health results ?

[Jenny583 in reply to tattybogle]

MMH tests were - on 125 mcg T4 & 5 mcg T3 ----TSH 0.01.

Still trying to find the % of the local tests, a different assay to the UK based assay, but look to be the same % - at least at 1st glance.

,T4 20.9 = 89%, T3 5.6 = 67%.

[tattybogle in reply to Jenny583]

FT4: 22.4 pmol/l (Range 10 - 25) 82.67%

FT3: 7.2 pmol/l (Range 4.3 - 8.1) 76.32%

so yes, pretty similar %'s. (small variations are to be expected. especially when not done from same sample ).

[Jenny583 in reply to tattybogle]

Thank you tattybogle, that confirms what I suspected. The reverse T3 may have caused a rise in reverse T3. The cause of the dementia according to the endo is the high BP, but my cortisol has dropped, so maybe that's a factor...