For over two years i have been searching for a diagnosis to my long held symptoms, hence my arrival here. I have been living with classic low thyroid symptoms for many years i fear. I am basically half dead half of the time, and mostly dead the rest.
Anyways - above is a Nuffield blood test read out, I think it says
TSH = low - lower quartile?
fT4 = middling? normal?
ft3 = below range?
I learnt about t3/t4 ratios in here (thanks Eeyore) and it seems to be 0.21 ( 3.7 / 17 ) Or 4.6 the other way around ?
I didnt take any notice of these results as at the time i was looking at B12 / Pernicous Anemia - since ruled out.
I am getting a new set of tests on the 14th Dec, to see how things are now.
I would welcome any pointers, resources or views on these results. Are they a funny mix? As they are not like the ones people seem to talk of here i.e. too little or too much of fT3 or fT4, or low / high TSH.
TIA. 🌻
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Treesong2023
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Bottom line.....for good health every cell in the body needs to be saturated with the active thyroid hormone T3, by way of an adequate and constant supply....that isn't happening for you!
You need to start medication with 50mcg levothyroxine to be taken daily then tested after 6/8 weeks, you will then need to add a further 25mcg levo and repeat the "wait and test" until symptoms resolve.
To support thyroid function it is vital to optimise vit D, vit B12, folate and ferritin.
Have you had antibodies TPO and Tg tested for Thyroid Autoimmune Disease/ Hashimoto's
A full thyroid test includes..
TSH, FT4, FT3, vitD, vit B12, folate, ferritin and thyroid antibodies TPO and Tg
Test should be close to 9am and at least an hour away from food and drinks.
It is not a quick fix and expect to feel both "up and down" as the dose is very slowly increased....it may feel as if it isn't working but stick with it! After long-time low hormone level your body will need time to adjust to the replacement hormone.
Thanks DippyDame, very much indeed. I will respond again soon. I am quite relieved / overwhelmed to finally have some answer having been told " your okay for age" - and "..its just your healthy anxiety dear..." all in my head... thanks tons xxx
You're welcome....it's shocking the drivel that some medics spout!
Nothing to do with health anxiety ...but everything to do with wrong diagnoses and no, or wrong, medication.
If they don't know what's wrong the easiest thing is to patronise the patient, especially if it's a woman " dear" and to opine that it's all in the mind and causing anxiety
The greater the ignorance the greater the degree of waffle involved!
Treesong, that's simply not good enough. Many of your puzzling symptoms could be due to B12 deficiency. If you can, do get the details of your B12 test and post them here for members to comment. In the meantime, have a look at this website which has a comprehensive list of symptoms that can be caused by (but are not exclusive to) vitamin B12 deficiency. b12info.com/signs-and-sympt...
Welcome (back) to the Thyroid board!!!! A few quick things after looking at your previous posts:
1) Thyroid & Vitamins/Anemias: I see you’ve spent most of your recent posts getting to the bottom of your anemia. This board obviously has excellent insight on that too.
That is because thyroid hormones and anemia are related in that low thyroid leads to bad absorption of some vitamins/anemia, and improving thyroid meds will help your vitamin/anemia levels.
Mirror image, low vitamins/anemias can lead to sub-optimal thyroid levels, and in that case treating the anemia can improve your thyroid levels. It’s helpful to understand this when you sequence out your treatment options and interpret your blood test results and seek answers for “why” you feel better/worse and why your numbers go up/down.
Especially because your thyroid antibody tests do not show autoimmune causes for your thyroid issues. Did I see that correctly? Now, some percent (5% 20% I can’t recall) of people who have autoimmune thyroid issues don’t test positive for it). So as you get advice on this board and keep us posted, you will learn how it all works together to narrow down the root cause of your symptoms.
2) In range is NOT optimal for thyroid hormones: For you though, your thyroid hormones are definitely causing symptoms - your bloods 10 months ago through the ones above are too low to feel well.
A good analogy I’ve read on the board, is that ranges are like shoe sizes. If you look at the lowest and highest shoe sizes and make that a range, then that’s what doctors call normal. But if you are a size 8, but you are wearing a size 5, your feet will hurt! But someone else will be fine. Thyroid ranges are like that - we are all the same but all very different. So doctors brush past your numbers as “in range” and “normal” but one day you’ll look back and see how ridiculous it is to think anyone is ok with a 3.7 FT3 (range starting at 3.9)
3) Ongoing Thyroid health- you are lucky to have the full thyroid bloods history: Free T4, Free T3, and TSH. Those are the three numbers you need every time, so that is awesome to see! As DippyDame ’s excellent post says - also include these 4 at every blood test: vitD, vit B12, folate, ferritin .
An important note on blood test timing; Seeing your previous posts, you are varying the time of day when you get your blood drawn. It’s more important than you think to get it as close to 9 am as possible and to do at the same time across all tests, and over time. Our hormones vary based on our circadian rhythm so any variations just makes it harder to get a clear interpretation and recommendation.
Ok, I think that’s it from me!
Make a new post when you get your newest bloods this week!
Blood test timing - medics use TSH to diagnose underactive thyroid and to adjust the dose. They don't seem to know that TSH varies during the day - highest before 9am and getting lower during the day. This can make the difference between getting diagnosed or not or having incorrect adjustments once you are diagnosed.
Try insisting that you need to be tested first thing and you are likely to be told that it doesn't matter. It does.
There's a diagram showing the variation of TSH during the day. I'll see if I can find it - or maybe someone else can find it.
With a T4 of 17, TSH of 1.16 and T3 of 3.7 your thyroid is entirely normal. Lower T3 may result from a lot of causes other than thyroid disease. Sometimes not eating enough or eating very low carb can cause a lower T3. It means your body is converting T4 to reverse T3 instead of T3. Or, you may need another T3 test as the above test results could wrong. I would test all three levels again in the morning after a night of fasting.
Thanks Kalicot, I will follow through on your steers. I have an ultrasound later this week. I hope i to have more info to work with. V Kind of you to help here. : 0 )
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I'm trying to find a doc who is willing to treat my symptomatic hypothyroidism when TSH is high but within UK 'normal' range, with low FT4.
test results-no meds or diagnosis
Lab results (understating high TSH)
Looking for advice on my hypothyroidism
Results going up and down advice please
