Hi,could anyone help?

[Bosleydog]

Hi,I live in France and have just had bloods done,unrelated to thyroid,and have a reading of 5.9TSH .My doctor muttered at me,wrote a prescription for Levothyrox,told me I would probably loose my hair and gain a lot of weight and would have to take it for life!I have no symptoms at all,but he wasn’t interested.Any help gratefully received.

[Star13]

Hi - it would help if you could post your full blood results with the reference ranges as some labs are different. Also what dose if any of medication you are on. Are you taking any vitimins? In order for thyroid hormones to work well it’s also good to have B12, Folate, Ferritin and Vit D at optimum levels. Did you have any tests for those done? Also what time was the blood test done and had you eaten before or taken any medication.

Sorry for all the questions but it will help us to help you.

[Bosleydog in reply to Star13]

Thank you so much for the speedy reply!I think these are results TSH. 5,990

T4 11,99pg/ml

15,47 pmol/L

I don’t take any medication,I went to to the Doctor for a back problem and this just cropped up.I don’t have any symptoms of low thyroid function and it seemed a bit excessive to go onto life time medication.I have started taking B12 as panicking.

[Brightness14 in reply to Star13]

I live in France and can't get the B12, Folate or Ferritin done. I have to visit the UK for that.

France is brilliant for most health things i.e. GP same face to face appointments no waiting in A and E but getting these done is almost impossible.

You can, however get T3 easily here too and it's cheap for me it's free because I have no thyroid.

Vitamin D yes that can be done.

[greygoose]

Well, your doctor could have been a little more helpful, but that's doctors for you! And, in a way, you're lucky because if you were in the UK, this would just have been ignored. The NHS likes the TSH to go over 10 before they will take any notice!

That said, the TSH can be raised for many reasons, so it is best to have at least two tests with over-range TSH before taking thyroid hormone replacement - which is what levothyrox is. So, if you haven't already started them, I would hold off a bit and get retested in a couple of months time.

As to your other results, I'm afraid we need more information. What is the range for the T4? And what is that 15.47 number? We need the names of the tests and the ranges because ranges vary from lab to lab.

As to what your doctor said about losing your hair and putting on weight, they are very common symptoms, but not the only ones! There are many, many different symptoms of hypothyroidism because thyroid hormones are needed by every single cell in your body to function correctly. So, if they are in short supply symptoms can occur anywhere and everywhere in your body and brain. But, you don't have to have them all to qualify! Every hypo has their own personal symptom list. So, unless you are incredibly healthy with nothing at all wrong with you, you probably do have symptoms, you just don't associate them with the thyroid.

As for taking it for life, if you are hypo you absolutely need to take if for life because you cannot live without thyroid hormone. But you take it for life because you need it, not because you started taking it. Should it turn out that you don't need it, and you stopped it, your thyroid would just pick up where it left off and start making hormone again. So, don't worry on that score. But, it is advisable to make sure you need it before starting it by getting retested some time soon - ish.

Oh, and for the next test, ask them to test antibodies, if they haven't already - TPO and Tg antibodies. And make sure you have the blood draw before 9 am and before breakfast.

And, by the way, back problems can be a symptom of hypo.