Bloods and GP help!

[Roxyburg]

Hi my partner has been suffering from symptoms of hypothyroidism for several years now. The bulk of this time he was suffering depression, anxiety and over weight so each visit to the GP about his symptoms would always be loose weight and sort your mental health. Amazingly since the start of this yr a change in diet has given him a 4 stone weight loss and some therapy has helped him get on top of his mental issues (just the occasional anxious day or his symptoms bring him down a little) all the gp does now suggest is a referral to chronic fatigue teams (8months on still waiting). Over the last year or so he had researched into hypothyroidism and he says it just all makes so much sense. The GP dismisses it every time we suggest and after some pressure they agree to bloods but only tested TSH!

We coughed up to pay for private tests but unfortunately we weren't told that biotin supplements would affect the results so we are taking those with a pinch of salt.

Last week the GP agreed to do further thyroid testing but despite email confirmation that they would test thyroid antibodies, t4 and t3 as well as tsh it appears they failed to do t3 and t4 and only did 1 antibody!

The results we received are:

TSH 0.65 miu/l (0-7 normal)

Thyroid peroxidase 14ku/l (0-5.6 normal)

B12 706ng/l (0-968 normal)

Iron 19 umol/l (0-148 normal)

Ferritin 226ng/ml (0-296 normal)

Folate 11ng/l (0-19 normal)

He's at the point now where he's not fussed about a treatment, it's a diagnosis and validation that he is suffering and it's not all in his head.

Any tips or advice? Are we going down the wrong track with hypothyroidism?

TIA

[SlowDragon Administrator]

No vitamin D

Is iron really only 19 and range 0-148!?

He needs full iron panel test

What were your private thyroid and vitamin test results

NHS never tests TG antibodies unless TPO antibodies are high

[Roxyburg in reply to SlowDragon]

What would be in the iron panel tests? I can check see if they were done too?

[Roxyburg in reply to SlowDragon]

He's done iron tests before and apparently they all come back 'normal'. Also tested vit D a few times and apparently they're normal too, although he does take a high dose supplement cos it does help him feel better.

Private results

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Roxyburg]

Low transferrin suggests iron deficiency, but he has highish ferritin

Perhaps time to see haematologist

Thyroid peroxidase 14ku/l (0-5.6 normal)

If this is correct, shows high thyroid antibodies = Hashimoto’s

[Roxyburg in reply to SlowDragon]

She did acknowledge the iron tests but only after I asked and pointed out that on his diet mainly consisting of grass fed steak. When he said he has 2 huge steaks a day she did think oh that is lower than it should be for that amount of red meat eaten

[GlowCoach Administrator in reply to SlowDragon]

Reference ranges were taken from labtestsonline and not the lab where the test was run.

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to GlowCoach]

So not relevant

[GlowCoach Administrator in reply to SlowDragon]

Unfortunately not.

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Welcome to the forum

Didn’t realise this was your first post

Full iron panel test

Test early morning, only water to drink between waking and test. Avoid high iron rich dinner night before test

Medichecks iron panel test

medichecks.com/products/iro...

[humanbean]

We coughed up to pay for private tests but unfortunately we weren't told that biotin supplements would affect the results so we are taking those with a pinch of salt.

How big a dose of biotin has your partner been taking? One of the problems with biotin is that only some test machines are affected by it, and customers/patients are never told whether their results will be altered by the blood sample containing higher than usual levels of biotin.

I would suggest that you post the results and ranges, the dose of biotin your partner was taking and how often, and which company did the testing. It might be useful, it might not, but it is worth a look anyway.

GP results :

Iron 19 umol/l (0-148 normal) Approx 13% through the range

Ferritin 226ng/ml (0-296 normal) Approx 76% through the range

One thing about your results from your GP that I don't understand is why every test has a lower limit for the range of zero. It doesn't make sense and it isn't usual for NHS tests. Zero isn't a healthy level for very many tests e.g. anyone with a zero result for any of the vitamins or minerals would be extremely ill.

If the zero at the bottom of the ranges was what your GP supplied then it would be worth querying it with whoever supplied the results. You may have to find out the name of the lab that did the testing and phone them to ask what ranges they really quote. And if all of the ones you got are accurate then shame on the lab and shame on the NHS!

[Roxyburg]

Yeh I found it strange that even 0 can be 'normal' we've gone down the iron route before and just told it's normal. however I am going to highlight that this is a concern that this is low when he is currently living on the carnivore diet (mainly Fred's fed steaks) as he finds whenever he returns to carbs the symptoms worsen.

It was a high strength vit b complex that contained the biotin, which contains a 100ug. He stopped taking this 5 days before his GP bloods.

[humanbean in reply to Roxyburg]

Five days is enough time to be off biotin before doing testing. So the results your partner got are usable and believable.

If you go to this link :

medichecks.com/products/adv...

and scroll down to "How to prepare for your test"it says :

Do not take biotin supplements for two days before this test, discuss this with your doctor if it is prescribed.

More info on biotin can be found here :

labtestsonline.org.uk/news/...

testing.com/news/new-guidel...

The amount of biotin which might affect test results varies from source to source, but I don't think 100ug per day will have much affect on test results.

Personally, I stop taking anything containing biotin for a week, but I am being excessively cautious. I stop most of my supplements for a week before testing.

[waveylines]

So he stopped biotin 5 days before the test. Then the tests are likely accurate not skewed. We say 7 days to be absolutely sure. The lab site I looked this up on said three days.

[Roxyburg in reply to waveylines]

The private tests (see screenshot) were taken while he was on biotin. The GP results in my original post were without the biotin

[greygoose]

Thyroid peroxidase 14ku/l (0-5.6 normal)

Is that Thyroid peroxidase antibodies? If so, he has Hashi's, which would explain an awful lot!

[Roxyburg in reply to greygoose]

Well we spoke to the GP today, apparently because it it less than 34 it's a normal result. She doesn't know where that range came from ?!

[greygoose in reply to Roxyburg]

Strange. 🤣