Hello everyone, this is my first post, though I’ve been gleaning pearls of wisdom from this site for a couple of years, so thank you all!
I’m a 60-year-old male. I’ve had chronic fatigue since 1988; tight forehead pain and a horrible “saturated brain” feeling since the late 1990s (brought on by reading; I get c.30 minutes of concentration on a good day and 5 seconds on a bad day); poor body temperature control since 2000; fasciculation (involuntary muscle jerking) since 2001; and MacTel Type 1 in my right eye (loss of central vision) since 2019.
Over 20 years ago, I suspected an under-active thyroid, but my frequent blood tests, both NHS and private, showed either normal TSH (1-something) or borderline hypo (2.5-ish). However, all my tests were mid-morning, after breakfast with a B-Complex supplement, and coffee. I didn’t know any better in those days!
In 2004-5, I had hydrocortisone for weak adrenals from a private doctor, which gave me more energy, but he couldn’t continue prescribing that without getting himself into trouble, so it stopped. Also, I tried Armour Thyroid, but that gave me a roller-coaster of a superb day followed by a hyper day followed by a crash, so I gave up the idea of an under-active thyroid.
On 20th February this year, I saw a neuro-muscular specialist about my fasciculation, which is sometimes severe enough to keep me awake at night. To my surprise, he authorized blood tests there and then. I had had coffee first thing that morning, followed by a cereal breakfast fortified with B-vitamins, then another coffee at c.11.30am, then prawn sandwiches for lunch. I had also been taking 400mg ibuprofen morning and evening for the previous week or so to counter inflammation from a slipped disc – all of which might swayed the results. Here they are (blood taken at 2.43pm):
Gamma GT: 122 IU/L (10-71)
TSH: 5.37 mIU/L (0.27-4.20)
FT4: 13.8 pmol/L (11.9-21.6)
(FT3 not measured)
Vit. B12: 301 pg/mL (197-771)
Folate: 3.7 ng/mL (2.9-26.8)
Ferritin: 120 ug/L (30-400)
25-hydroxy Vit. D: 163 nmol/L (25-120)
(I’ve been taking 8,000 IU Vit. D drops every morning for a couple of years, with 80ug Vit. K2 MK-7 and 444mg magnesium citrate every evening, so the high Vit. D is not surprising)
I don’t know what the high Gamma GT result might mean, but to me, a raised TSH with low FT4, folate and B12 suggest hypothyroidism. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated. Thank you.