Thyroid Ultrasound

[Cassav]

Hi all,

I have the results of my ultrasound and it says it's normal?! How can that be? Can the knowledgeable people on here help me to interpret the ultrasound report below.

Her USS is normal done on 27th Jan

US THYROID:

The right lobe measures at the lower limit of normal 4.3 ml.

The lobe is lobulated, striated, diffusely heterogeneous and hypoechoic.

Normal vascular appearances.

No focal nodules.

The left lobe measures at the lower limit of normal at 4.3 ml.

The lobe is lobulated, striated, diffusely heterogeneous and hypoechoic.

Normal vascular appearances.

No focal nodules.

The isthmus is normal in thickness and measures 3 mm.

Heterogeneous echotexture.

Normal appearances of the bilateral anterior triangle lymph nodes. No lymphadenopathy noted.

Normal appearance of the bilateral submandibular and parotid glands.

CONCLUSION

Diffusely heterogeneous thyroid measuring at the lower and normal in volume

[J972]

Is your surprise because you thought being hypo meant that your thyroid would show signs of damage?

I thought the same, after my thyroid ultrasound late last year where the ONLY feedback I received was that it was ‘boringly normal’. I was confused and immediately sought the help of the forum. Here’s the post:

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu....

[Cassav in reply to J972]

Hi, yes I thought it would show some sign of damage. Thank you so much for sending me the link to the post😊. I will read it carefully and try to wrap my head around what is causing my hypothyroidism!

[J972 in reply to Cassav]

You’re welcome. Hopefully others will be along with more insight into why you’re symptomatic.

The dr who conducted my ultrasound gleefully (a bit too gleefully for my liking in fact) declared that I ‘don’t have a thyroid condition.’ I said ‘I respectfully disagree’, a phrase I’ve had to unfortunately bust out in a few medical settings of late (I’m *trying* to bite my tongue).

[Cassav in reply to J972]

'I respectfully disagree' is a good one to use! I wonder what the endocrinologist will say about my scan at my appointment in May!

[Sparklingsunshine in reply to Cassav]

There can be many causes, obviously autoimmune is the most obvious, around 90% of cases are autoimmune, but there are other causes,not enough iodine or conversely too much in the diet, pituitary damage, childbirth, certain medications like Lithium can cause hypo.

Certain other medical conditions seem to go hand in hand with thyroid disease. Ultimately it a moot point as once the thyroid is malfunctioning it rarely recovers. And treatment is the same whatever the cause, thyroid replacement therapy.

[Cassav in reply to Sparklingsunshine]

For me pregnancy was the major trigger but I was hypothyroid years before then and Subclinical hypothyroidism since 2014. But I have TPO antibodies so that confirms that it's autoimmune? I guess I may not ever find out the exact root cause

[Sparklingsunshine in reply to Cassav]

If you have raised antibodies then that confirms AI thyroid disease. Autoimmune conditions are far more prevalent in women, one of the many joys of being female 😒.

Just to add to the puzzle some people with AI thyroid never have raised antibodies. My antibodies have been tested in 2016 and 2020 and have never been elevated. So maybe I'm one of the 10% whose thyroid problems are down to other causes.

[Cassav in reply to Sparklingsunshine]

Yes, Gabor Mate's theory is that we as women are conditioned to be 'nice' and put others first and that repressing emotions, particulary anger, causes stress and autoimmune disease. I'm definitely in recovery from 'good girl' conditioning 👊🏽

Yes it's such a puzzle. We really have to learn to tune into our bodies and experiment.

[greygoose]

As you have high antibodies, you do have Autoimmune Thyroiditis - aka Hashi's - but it would seem that there hasn't been enough damage done yet to show up on the ultrasounds. Doubtless, with time, it will show up, but unlikely they'll ever do another ultrasound because they don't seem to understant that things can get worse!

[Cassav in reply to greygoose]

🤦🏾‍♀️. They really are useless about so much

[greygoose in reply to Cassav]

🤣

[SlowDragon Administrator]

diffusely heterogeneous and hypoechoic.

this is indicative of hashimoto’s

entlubbock.com/blog/heterog...

everlywell.com/blog/thyroid...

Heterogeneous echogenicity” may indicate that a small growth known as a thyroid nodule has developed on the thyroid. [3] More commonly, it describes the likely presence of a diffuse thyroid disease (DTD), the most common of which are Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) and Graves’ disease.

[Cassav in reply to SlowDragon]

Thank you!