I have a separate post about hair loss, so this one is just me chasing down rabbit trails. I am a woman in my 50s with no thyroid, and I have had hair loss for 3 years. In trying to research new threads that might lead me to a cause, I discovered that the hair loss began about a year in to me increasing my thyroid meds dosage. I know that hyperthyroidism (or over medicating) can cause hair loss, but I don't think I have any other traditional symptoms of hyperthyroidism.
Are there any "hyper" folks out there who can confirm to me that if I was over-medicated, I'd most likely have other symptoms as well? I just want to be able to close the door on this line of thought if I'm way off track.
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Gal69
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I’m going to link to your last post healthunlocked.com/thyroidu... so that people don’t ask you all the same questions as last time.
Short answer—I don’t know but I think it would be unlikely. Your T3 dosage is high but you haven’t described any other over medicated symptoms and I’m fairly sure you would be experiencing them if that was the case.
Gal, I was hyperthyroid then had treatment and became hypothyroid so I have experience of both. I can say that the symptoms I experienced were the same for both conditions inc hair loss. In my experience the lists you read online of hyper and hypo symptoms are misleading as in reality the symptoms for both conditions are very similar.
This is why I would advise folks to look at blood results to guide them as to whether their symptoms were due to overmedication or undermedication .
What would someone expect to see in lab results if hyperthyroid? I've never officially been labeled as either since my meds are to replace a no-longer-present thyroid.
This is a minor point and I hope you don’t mind me being pedantic but if you don’t have a thyroid you can’t ever be hyperthyroid. You could be over-medicated but your thyroid itself is no longer producing anything—too little or too much. So you definitely won’t ever be labelled as hyperthyroid.
The use of the right terminology might seem like a little thing but it can confuse people reading your post if you title the post with the word hyperthyroidism when you actually mean over-medication. You may not get as many replies to this as some will have scrolled by thinking they don’t have any experience of hyperthyroidism.
Gal you would not be hyperthyroid. That term is used when the thyroid itself produces too much hormone. You would be overmedicated meaning that your daily dose of replacement hormones was too high The easiest way to get help with your levels is to find out the results of recent thyroid blood tests from your doctor and the ranges for those tests. Then folks will explain the results to you.
You can get any of the symptoms for either hypo or hyper, they are just more usually with one or the other. My Mum was super slim but was hypo for example.
I've just had a read through of both your threads and have followed you, so please do post back if you get to the bottom of it.
I may be on the same journey as my hair has been thinning for the last few months. It's not really noticeable yet I don't think, but I can feel it has drastically thinned and my husband has commented on the amount of hair he finds everywhere. I watched a Youtube video that says you don't even notice until you've lost something like 50%!
I am hypothyroid and have been on the same meds for years (100micrograms thyroxine)and feel well. I had an operation 6 months ago and needed a blood transfusion. My hairdresser seems to think that may well be the reason, and it will just take my body a while to recover. I know that even after the transfusion, my levels of pretty much everything were low. I have a post op appointment next week so I shall probably mention it.
You mentioned a cancer treatment - was that recent? Could that have had an effect?
Hair loss is very often low ferritin. I can tell you almost exactly when my levels drop below my optimal because suddenly my hair is coming out by the handful!
Ferritin are considered iron 'stores' so if your iron is low your body will try to maintain 'good' iron levels and take from the 'store' to achieve that. So you can have good iron levels and poor ferritin!
At the moment, I don't supplement because I have good iron. (Which is annoying because all I can do now is try to prop my levels up with food and hope for the best!)
Iron supplements aren't prescription; you can walk into any chemist or health food shop and buy them! But as you say, too much iron can be harmful so it's recommended on here to check your levels first.
Thank you, that's really useful to know. I've been eating well I think, so it may just take time.
When I look at my blood tests, I can't actually see any tests re iron or ferritin though I have had a raft of others - almost everything low within the normal range and nothing out of it.
I am a bit confused about ferritin versus iron. They are not the same are they?
No, they aren't the same. Doctors usually just test ferritin, but having a full iron panel can tell you so much more about your health than a ferritin result alone.
A good iron panel would include :
Serum iron
Total Iron Binding Capacity (TIBC) or Transferrin
Transferrin Saturation Percentage
Ferritin
CRP (an inflammation marker which affects ferritin levels)
Comments :
1) Ferritin and iron aren't the same. They can be at different levels i.e one could be high while the other is low. This in itself tells you worthwhile information.
2) If people start supplementing iron to raise their ferritin they may find that it doesn't rise. But behind the scenes their serum iron may be rising a massive amount. If iron isn't measured people can damage themselves with excess iron in their blood, and the body has no mechanism to get rid of it. But people won't know what is going on without adequate testing.
3) If someone gets an infection (bacterial, viral, fungal, a parasite or any other pathogen) those things all reproduce if and when they can. And one of the ingredients required for reproduction in pathogens is iron. Pathogens can get iron from serum iron and haemoglobin but can't get it from ferritin where it is locked up tight. The body has developed a defence called the "Iron Withholding Defence". What this does is it reduces the body's free iron availability in serum and in haemoglobin, and stores more iron in ferritin - people can end up mildly anaemic. This condition has various names "Anaemia of Chronic Disease" or "Anaemia of Chronic Inflammation" are the commonest names I've seen. In this condition, ferritin rises, serum iron drops, iron saturation decreases, and haemoglobin drops. And all this happens in order to reduce the iron available to pathogens to reduce their ability to reproduce.
Thank you so much. As mentioned above, I can't see any iron or ferritin tests in the raft I had done last August (op and transfusion was end of May).
My haemoglobin concentration was below normal in June, but back into the middle of range in August. All my electrolytes were normal but low in range in August (after also being below range). I had such a craving for crisps and salty things which made complete sense to me.
It would make sense that my ferritin and iron were depleted with my blood loss, and so I may now be seeing the signs of it, even though I (hopefully!) have turned the corner.
I still have some post op issues which I think are not blood related, so I will bring this up next week and get an iron panel done privately if they refuse to do it. I definitely won't be supplementing iron without that.
I will go and have a good read of your link now. Thanks again.
Edit: really useful table in that link! I think my issue must relate to my blood loss after op.🤞🤞
I"m aware of the ferritin issue. I've had my full iron labs done more than once. Last ferritin check was in August 2021 and it was at 87. I was actively losing hair at that time. My ferritin was actually lower 5 years ago when I had a full head of hair. So, it doesn't make sense to me.
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